DCS Carrier Discussion

[Beirut]

And the sun.

 

 

Landed at night.

[Zee Pet]

Yeah if they had to rush each new module out the door so they could fund the next one that would be bad.

 

I don't think it's quite as bad as it seems though. The Hornet and Viper in particular haven't gone as well as everyone would have liked; however I think that ED didn't rush them out the door to fund future modules, they're doing it to fund tech development for things like AA/AG radar, proper INS, TGP, IR shaders etc. It means things are a bit rough now, but it should make the release of future modules easier and prevent this stuff from happening (at least as much).

 

ED may have its flaws, but everything it does seems to be for the long term - at least I think so.

 

This is actually a pretty good point and one that's pretty easy to forget. There are significant 'firsts' that happened with the development of the Hornet; immediately coming to mind- high fidelity AA radar, AG radar, independent engine simulations, Datalink ground work for all of that. Matt had even mentioned getting all this groundwork done now will speed up future development.

 

I do think everyone's concerns over perpetual EA are valid, but I do hope that this is just a funky transient of funding needed to get all this groundwork done (technical debt as Kate said). Anyway I guess this is getting off topic now.

[Tinkickef]

That's exactly what I thought too. When you rely on new project pre-order funding to pay existing expenses, well...that's just not a long term sustainable business model - unless you have an unlimited quantity of new projects on tap and an unlimited customer base that's always willing to keep buying in (though there's no such thing as unlimited projects or unlimited customers especially in the niche market DCS lives in). Even so, there has to come a point where revenue from the sale of completed (not planned) projects covers expenses - hopefully with some leftover to fund new project development.

 

 

 

Otherwise you'll wind up with a constant stream of new projects that never get out of EA because you need more pre-order new projects to fund their development, but then that isn't enough because you have additional labor costs to bring those pre-order projects to EA release. Eventually projects pile up in EA until you reach a tipping point where all the new project funds possible will never catch up and the dog is left chasing it's tail. I seriously hope that's not where ED is heading :(

 

 

I think a big part of the problem ED are seeing now is the core engine. We all know how notoriously unreliable and convoluted the old dear has become. It is past its sell by date and is being kept alive with gaffer tape and zip ties.

I bet a good proportion of dev time is spent just keeping the old girl ticking along and this for ED is unpaid work and inefficient as they have to rewrite major parts of it to give it the power to cope with features that were just pipe dreams several years ago due to lack of computing power at the customers end.

 

As anyone who ever ran an old banger of a car, the older it gets, the more maintenance it needs and the more it costs to run, while the less time it spends actually doing its job.

 

Perhaps ED have held on to the old engine too long and the way forward in the future is planned obsolescence and buying in a new off the peg engine, modifying it and designing modules with that in mind.

 

I know they are working very hard to get vulkan up and running, but by the time they manage it, it may well already be obsolete.

It is a very hard and windy tightrope they are walking.

[shagrat]

I heard the same interview, and caught on to the "business plan" description. This however can become a problem when pre-buy and early access funds are used to essentially borrow from the future. When the future arrives there is insufficient new sales to fund ongoing expenses, necessitating something else sold early access, and so on.

 

 

When you listened to the interview there was a very clear statement from Nick that a major (!) reason for the Early Access model is to catch bugs and feedback before major features are implemented. I think it was Kate or Wags in another interview that pointed out that it would make it impossible to revert the whole development of a feature, where peoples feedback currently shapes priority and even adds details and corrections. EA allows to identify a bug in the module after each patch that adds a new feature. If you need to revert say the whole A/A radar, because now some guys identify a little bug in the radar modeling, but to fix it, requires to reverse the work of 6-8 months and start from scratch, it won't happen, unless the bug is really severe. What Nick meant, is such a business model, where you need to reverse months of work after bugs are identified close to release, is a) not financially viable as it wastes insane amounts of developer time and b) can delay a release until a point where it gets released no matter what and with no more budget on the project to fix anything. (I've seen this with industry related projects in the past, that's one reason why agile and dev ops have been "invented").

So Nick told us they use Early Access to get the most bang ( modules that meet DCS standards) for our bucks by letting us test new features and systems early in the process, so our feedback can be heard and bugs and issues we have with our complicated Sim rigs are identified when they can be fixed easier, than close to release.

[shagrat]

I was just coming to ask this very question, given that the first delay, the excuse was used that they don’t release during a sale, now granted we all know that was just an excuse and the real reason was it just wasn’t ready.

 

 

So you where knowing how? I wonder because they clearly stated the multiplayer issues arised when they took the time during sales to add features. After the build process for the test build from last Saturday there were breaking issues with Multi-Player, that were not happening before.

So we can speculate if the LSO code, Tomcat, hangar or simply a code change in DCS Core caused the problem but I never perceived the team as lying to us?

[Cowboy10uk]

So you where knowing how? I wonder because they clearly stated the multiplayer issues arised when they took the time during sales to add features. After the build process for the test build from last Saturday there were breaking issues with Multi-Player, that were not happening before.

So we can speculate if the LSO code, Tomcat, hangar or simply a code change in DCS Core caused the problem but I never perceived the team as lying to us?

 

Because they also clearly stated there were issues it’s bugs in that very post, although a few paragraphs below the excuse of not releasing during the sale. We were all aware of the issues regarding the F14, although as thats a 3rd party project then yes it might take some time to get it dialled in.

 

Do you honestly believe that these bugs just magically appeared at the weekend on the last build.

 

( surely if SC was purely delayed because of the sale as they clearly blamed it on, then how come it all of a sudden no longer works... )

 

Plus I never said the team has lied to us, I have just pointed out that by using the excuse that is was delayed because of the sale, rather than the fact it still doesn’t work right, they have now left themselves in a bit of a pickle.

 

IF they now release before the 18th May, which is when this current sale ends, then they will go against their own policy that they stated they follow for releases only earlier this month. I.E. no new releases during sales.

 

IF they don’t release before the 18th, then people will start questioning how on Earth ED missed their eta by so much. Is it bad management etc.

 

They have put themselves between a rock and a hard place by not just being honest in the first place and clearly stating, sorry all, we still have some game stoping bugs with SC and we need to delay her a bit to get it right.

 

Here is the post in question and it clearly shows 9 stoppers on the list, including the MP sync issues that is the reason for the current delay.

 

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=4250396&postcount=1

Edited April 18, 2020 by Cowboy10uk

[Dunx]

... IF they now release before the 18th May, which is when this current sale ends, then they will go against their own policy that they stated they follow for releases only earlier this month. I.E. no new releases during sales...

 

Possibly after 27th May?...

 

On Steam

Fly the F/A-18C Hornet, F-16C Viper, A-10C Warthog, F-5E Tiger II, Persian Gulf Map and all DCS World War II products for free during a two-week period from April 19th to May 3rd.

 

Between the 13th and 27th of May, a 50% discount on all DCS products will be available.

[Funkysak]

Why wouldn't they release it and just not have it as a sale item if that is the normal policy? Most of us bought it when it was on pre-release sale. And if you haven't what were you waiting for?

[fmedges]

Why wouldn't they release it and just not have it as a sale item if that is the normal policy? Most of us bought it when it was on pre-release sale. And if you haven't what were you waiting for?

 

Nobody knows what their position is and they don't seem to want to clarify.

[Hog_No32]

Anybody has an idea whether the long range lineup light at the stern will be on/visible/usable for nighttime ops only or daytime as well?

[dawgie79]

Anybody has an idea whether the long range lineup light at the stern will be on/visible/usable for nighttime ops only or daytime as well?

See this vid. It will, you can see it from 12 minutes in the vid (that far from the boat it's hard to see, but you can see it blinking in the distance), all the way through you get to see the line-up light changing colors (red/orange/green).

 

Edited April 19, 2020 by dawgie79

[Larkis]

Do you honestly believe that these bugs just magically appeared at the weekend on the last build.

 

Do speak honestly. Yes i do. Im a also a software developer and it happens much more often then i want to admit.

 

More like "ok everything works fine now. Let us make a last test with condorion X abd Y abd then... oh shi...."

 

Sometimes its just murphys law. An example that really happened last week: some Guy made an routine update to pur servers. That guy has some unnoticed errors in his update. Cause of this errors our live database get cleaned up completly. No problem just roll in the yesterday backup and... what do you mean the auto-backup-function is broken and the last backup is feom early march?

 

In the end we frankensteined a backup from different local dev repositories but it was so rushed that we need to restart the QA of 3 softwares to check everything still work as accepted.

 

What mist peopke dont know is that QA is not only a one way test. They must retest everything to check that a big fix dont break anything else. Sometimes it happebs that an important bugfix crash something other that works fine before. You had one last bug on the list, fix it and you get 3 new blocker bugs. That happens too.

[shagrat]

Here is the post in question and it clearly shows 9 stoppers on the list, including the MP sync issues that is the reason for the current delay.

 

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=4250396&postcount=1

 

In my opinion, none of these need to stop a single player only release. A simple warning to not use it in MP and list of the WIP issues would have sufficed.

I am pretty sure we face something more critical "breaking" the game than just the annoyance of some deck sliding and not synced events in MP...

[Tohnnie]

Does somebody knows why last update add bumpy active suspension to carrier-based aircrafts?

Thanks in advance.

[sebihepp]

Do speak honestly. Yes i do. Im a also a software developer and it happens much more often then i want to admit.

 

More like "ok everything works fine now. Let us make a last test with condorion X abd Y abd then... oh shi...."

 

Sometimes its just murphys law. An example that really happened last week: some Guy made an routine update to pur servers. That guy has some unnoticed errors in his update. Cause of this errors our live database get cleaned up completly. No problem just roll in the yesterday backup and... what do you mean the auto-backup-function is broken and the last backup is feom early march?

 

Oh, yeah. I know this too good. I am working in the biggest software company with its headquarters outside america and I know these backup things. Often enough a system needs to be restored and suddenly the latest good backup was from a month ago. Although we are taking backups at least every day. Sometimes it seems that the best backup mechanism just doesn't work...

[shagrat]

Does somebody knows why last update add bumpy active suspension to carrier-based aircrafts?

Thanks in advance.

From the release notes:

 

(...)"Known issues

...

MP: Ship speed calculated with errors and drifted, so aircraft can slide on the deck"(...)

[Hog_No32]

See this vid. It will, you can see it from 12 minutes in the vid (that far from the boat it's hard to see, but you can see it blinking in the distance), all the way through you get to see the line-up light changing colors (red/orange/green).

 

 

Thanks. Well, this is not really daytime. It is a CASE III which is only used in nighttime (apparently including dusk&dawn as in the vid) or poor weather.

 

Let me rephrase: Is the long range lineup light visible/on the at noon and with perfect visibilty? I know that you normally wouldn‘t (have to) use it in a CASE I recovery, but I was curious nevertheless.

[G B]

Thanks. Well, this is not really daytime. It is a CASE III which is only used in nighttime (apparently including dusk&dawn as in the vid) or poor weather.

 

Let me rephrase: Is the long range lineup light visible/on the at noon and with perfect visibilty? I know that you normally wouldn‘t (have to) use it in a CASE I recovery, but I was curious nevertheless.

 

Typically it’s not even on unless it’s Case 3.

[WytchCrypt]

I think a big part of the problem ED are seeing now is the core engine. We all know how notoriously unreliable and convoluted the old dear has become. It is past its sell by date and is being kept alive with gaffer tape and zip ties.

I bet a good proportion of dev time is spent just keeping the old girl ticking along and this for ED is unpaid work and inefficient as they have to rewrite major parts of it to give it the power to cope with features that were just pipe dreams several years ago due to lack of computing power at the customers end.

 

 

Makes sense. The long term legacy products I worked on got harder and harder to maintain each year as new features were added. The original design of the foundation just wasn't built to handle all the new goodies as we never saw them coming. Sooner or later, we had to tear large chunks of it down to the ground and redesign the foundation. As far as DCS, since the core engine is it's foundation and not an add-on like SC to be charged for, keeping it together and strong enough to handle each new add-on is a thankless job that doesn't generate revenue in and of itself

[Bloodhound57]

That video was posted in June of 2019. Coming up on a year ago. Who knows what has been changed since then.

[vanir]

Just out of curiosity...and a "no" is a perfectly acceptable answer here, I'm thrilled and excited about the module I've pre-ordered and happy to wait as long as you guys need to feel comfortable about release...but I was wondering, since most likely the new Kuznetsov and Arleigh Burke models are completed and the delays are for coding details in the American supercarrier, if it might be possible for paid pre-orders to get an advance delivery of those two or if the trio needs to be packaged together for coding reasons or whathaveyou? Just a timid question and please don't think I'm being impatient, it's just a sort of can I open one of my Christmas presents the night before if it's already under the tree kind of angle :D

[Wali763]

Just out of curiosity...and a "no" is a perfectly acceptable answer here, I'm thrilled and excited about the module I've pre-ordered and happy to wait as long as you guys need to feel comfortable about release...but I was wondering, since most likely the new Kuznetsov and Arleigh Burke models are completed and the delays are for coding details in the American supercarrier, if it might be possible for paid pre-orders to get an advance delivery of those two or if the trio needs to be packaged together for coding reasons or whathaveyou? Just a timid question and please don't think I'm being impatient, it's just a sort of can I open one of my Christmas presents the night before if it's already under the tree kind of angle :D

 

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=4288599&postcount=1527

[Hoirtel]

I would love to see an "Official Answer" to this also...Sale till May 18th means...No Super Carrier Release till at Earliest May 19th??

 

Yeah, for sure. Extended sale and trials are driving more sales of current products. When that ends the SC will be released, then I think we are going to get the p-47 dropped without any pre-release discount. All that will increase sales which is fine I guess, they are a business after all and I want them to do well and thrive. I would expect the lockdown has increased players considerably. They want to make the most out of current products before driving new sales.

 

I'll survive, just disappointed as I was looking forward to the SC and to find out on the same day was a bit rubbish. If the decision was made then, I think we would have had loads of youtube videos showing it off. We only have that one so I think it may have been planned beforehand. I have to say although I'm sure the SC has bugs, it is early access, sounds like they could have released it for SP with MP coming soon after. Isn't this how early access works? Isn't the tomcat compatibility also not coming on release?

 

Sorry ED for criticism, I love DCS and want you too keep up the good work!

[pimp]

...I'll survive, just disappointed as I was looking forward to the SC and to find out on the same day was a bit rubbish. If the decision was made then, I think we would have had loads of youtube videos showing it off. We only have that one so I think it may have been planned beforehand. I have to say although I'm sure the SC has bugs, it is early access, sounds like they could have released it for SP with MP coming soon after. Isn't this how early access works? Isn't the tomcat compatibility also not coming on release?...

I wasn't going to speak on this topic anymore, but I have to say I agree with you, because I felt the same way. I have always said that, to me, the Supercarrier was one of the most under promoted modules I have seen from ED. There were only 2 videos created for it. With other modules, we were getting videos almost every week or every other week, especially right before release. The bottom line is that they just missed handled this debacle, and even ED couldn't deny it. I just hope there's nothing major needed to fix the issues, such as a complete code rewrite. I hope they can get the issues squared away "soon", because I see so much potential with this module, especially with user interactions.

[UnhappyGuy342]

To be honest ED, I`m a bit disappointed with the delay of the SC but it`s completely acceptable and I know you guys are trying hard to make it come to us.

 

However, I`m upset because I don`t know how long I need to wait. I`m not going to be harsh and asking you guys finish the SC in a short period. I also don`t mind if you guys give a date far than I expected.

 

I really want a date and maybe someday before the actual release date you guys say we have done it and it`s ready in DCS. I`ll be very happy and thankful for the surprise and I know there is also the thought of some people out there.

 

Hopefully, you guys can figure out a way to keep us update and don`t let us down as we don`t want to lose faith on ED team.