E for All expo report.

[Wags]

Anytime, was nice to meet you in person.

[The_GOZR]

Great shots but what is in the top right corner a radar cfs3 style what a immersion killer .. Is there going to be a setting to turn it off ? as well off in server ..

The ka50 look fantastic...

[SuperKungFu]

that radar on the right corner was when black shark was running on "easy-mode." In the full out realism settings, you will not see that.

[Weta43]

what is in the top right corner a radar cfs3 style what a immersion killer .. Is there going to be a setting to turn it off

 

It's only in the screenshots/video where the description actually says they are running easy or 'arcade' mode, & you've seen other video/screenshots with it not there - so I guess you already know the answer to that don't you :-)

 

Interesting thing - the timestamp on the post above is (I can't remember - 20 minutes) earlier than mine by a reasonable amount, but wasn't there when I posted ...

Odd.

[The_GOZR]

:) Yes

[Glowing_Amraam]

Bring on the pictures SK :D

[VMFA117_Poko]

Wow, wow, just WOW!

 

At last we know so much about incoming product. Thank You all for updates, posting photos, Wags again for presence, SIMHQ.com for first review. Now advertising looks much better.

[G3]

now i understand the saying:

once you've had black you can't go back :D

 

looking forward to more reviews and screenshots.

i need those reports on my desk in the morning :D

[Wags]

Glad you guys like what you are hearing and seeing. Like I said back in the Lock On forum... once we made the "big annoucement" we'd be sharing a lot more information. That time has come as you see.

[SuperKungFu]

Alright here’s my impression after playing with Black Shark the first time: WOW, awesome, breathtaking, awe-inspiring…and other synonyms for wow.

My bro did take some pictures of me when I was piloting the Ka-50, however, these pics looks exactly like the pictures from SimFreak and the SimHQ report so I’m just going to give the glory to them. (That’s what I get for showing up late on Saturday haha). So I’m just going to say some of the things I saw:

 

One of the first things I noticed was the extreme detail of the Ka-50. The artist and designers really went all out on this one. Basically every little detail is covered down to the small windshield wipers on the targeting screen as well as heat blur coming from the back of the engines.

 

Wags was patient enough to give me the whole start-up tutorial, which took about 20 minutes lol. (Of course this will vary because you can skip some of the steps such as checking for lights, arming the ejection seat…etc. Plus Matt was explaining a lot of the steps- which I really appreciate so thank you for that). Matt was doing it the proper start-up procedure and showed me all the little details within the cockpit. One thing cool is that you can toggle your pilot’s body on or off. So that explains why some videos and screens showed the pilot’s hands in the picture and others it didn’t. It’s probably best to turn it off so that you can see the switches (such as the master arm) near the front of the joystick. Also it might save some fps. Sadly I wasn’t able to test out the 6dof because there were too many IR interference in the background, but I know that will come in useful when you do have to look around your stick and throttle for some buttons.

 

Speaking about the fps, even though the quality is amazing and the Ka-50 is about 75K poly, I didn’t really feel a fps impact. Even on modern computers, FC will have small stutters in the beginning but BS didn’t. It would be great if Wags later post the system specs of what the BS beta was running on. Therefore, we at least know they have made some changes to the game-engine. I also saw some of the new tank models, which were amazing, as well as the new Blackhawk helo. Also, when you look around the terrain, you will notice the mountains and hills are a lot more smoother. Plus I’ve notice some new objects around the tarmac which can be seen in the SimHQ report. In the current beta, there is no tree damage, I hope it would come before the final release of Black Shark, but only time will tell.

 

Moving on to the main menu. As you’ve probably seen in the SimHQ report, there’s a nice new menu for Black Shark. Since it’s still a beta, a couple things are still in the works such as the Encyclopedia (which is a shame since I wanted to see all the new models and units haha). The Mission Editor really blew me away. It was a lot more complex and professional compared to the old one. Most of the symbols on the ME are the real military symbols, and you get set triggers at various waypoints. This means you have a lot more control over the AI, telling it exactly what to do. To quote Matt, it was “200% more efficient that the old one.”

 

Back to the Ka-50, again the detail was awesome. I’m not embarrassed to say that my first attempt ended up me crashing. I banked the helo just a little bit too hard and broke my rotary blades. Looks like we all need some practice. But it’s not as bad as what Mr. 20mm did, I heard he flooded the engines or something so my crash had style in it lol. J/k. However, with the help of Wags, I scored my first successful kill in Black Shark so that felt really good. And trust me, it’s not easy. First you have to concentrate on keeping the helo stable, then you have to look at your targeting screen- and when you’re at this stage, make sure your helo is not drifting- mine sure did, to its grave. Luckly there’s various autopilot modes like the Su-25T that will help you keep the helo stable as you pick off your targets one by one. One cool feature the ED team added was the use of the radio frequency. I believe I heard there a folder within the Black Shark directory that you can place your music files into. And when you’re in the Ka-50 and set it to the correct frequency, you can listen to your music haha. Sure it may be slightly arcade-ish but hey, it’s cool. If you want realism, the radio and other data link obeys the laws of direct line of sight- which means you would actually loose signals if you are behind a canyon wall.

 

Matt was kind enough to give me the same treatment as SimFreak and showed me some of the new screens of the A-10 and Apache cockpits. The attention and detail to these cockpits would be the same as the Ka-50, along with 6dof, so they are setting a whole new benchmark for future flight sims. This would answer why DCS said they would be coming out with new aircraft every 9 months since the work has already began. Well that’s all I can think of now, this report is getting a bit long so I’ll end it here. If I think of anything else I’ll post again.

[Esac_mirmidon]

Thanks for sharing your experience SuperKungFu.

 

Very interesting things mentioned.

[SimFreak]

Here's a video I found of CH guy (Micheal) talking about MPF

 

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/34443/118/

 

(I'm working on general E for All write up...but it's coming very slowly)

[-akyla-]

Thanks SuperKungFu!

did everybody hear that ! Heatblur from engines !!! WOHOOOO!!:):):)

[Squid_DK]

Thank you very much SuperKungFu, very good report, from the info that has been released this weekend this looks like it will be the new benchmark for combat flight sims.

 

Cheers

Staffan

[some1]

Thanks SuperKungFu!

 

One cool feature the ED team added was the use of the radio frequency...

 

Does it mean that we can talk with other players using in-game comms instead of teamspeak?

[Malleus]

Thanks for the report SuperKungFu!:thumbup:

[britgliderpilot]

Thanks SuperKungFu!

 

Does it mean that we can talk with other players using in-game comms instead of teamspeak?

 

At present, no.

 

It'd be something nice to see, but don't expect it - TeamSpeak currently functions well enough running side-by-side. And those who don't want to have to tune their radios in manually and suffer radio failures from battle damage might not like direct voice chat ;)

 

I like the idea, though, will put a request in.

[SuperKungFu]

Here's a few pic of my experience there

 

And here's Wags showing me some of the new Mission Editor

 

And me flying it....and later crashing it

 

I also saw this there and would one day like to try it out with black shark

 

I do have a couple of request for black shark, but to start off with a simple thing, is it possible to have high cirrus clouds for Black Shark. And speaking about clouds, i can only dream of having clouds like these

http://nis-ei.eng.hokudai.ac.jp/~doba/anime/sig00_cloud.mpg

[some1]

At present, no.

 

I like the idea, though, will put a request in.

 

It's one of the coolest features in FSX multiplayer. You can talk to other people flying different planes by changing your radio frequency. But your co-pilot (if there is any) can hear you all the time.

 

About the possible radio damage - well, another aspect of modern battlefield that can be put into simulator - loosing communication between units during battle. :)

 

Just an idea.

[SimFreak]

I also saw this there and would one day like to try it out with black shark

 

[/url]

 

What the heck is that? Can you talk about it little bit?

[thereminqblank]

Looks like a personal IMAX!

[TekaTeka]

What the heck is that? Can you talk about it little bit?

 

That's 'Vision Station'.

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/elumens.htm

[SuperKungFu]

exactly, it was dome-shaped screen. So it gives you like a small IMAX experience. Pretty cool, when you stand in the middle of it, you can enjoy both the sound and the image quality. And thanks Tekateka for the info, over there it was under a different name...something EuroVision, or EuroDome.

 

Here's one more pic of black shark

[Ditch3r]

 

 

And speaking about clouds, i can only dream of having clouds like these

http://nis-ei.eng.hokudai.ac.jp/~doba/anime/sig00_cloud.mpg

 

 

That would be amazing!:thumbup:

[Malleus]

It would be great if Wags later post the system specs of what the BS beta was running on.

 

Oh yes, that would be great.:music_whistling: