DCS World roadmap update

[Svsmokey]

This thread , more than anything else i've read , makes me hopeful and optimistic for DCS' future . Great job Ms Perederko .

[MeanDroid]

That means that we created a new game and took FC3 as a starting point because it is popular and easy to start with in DCS.

 

That News make me even more worried and disappointed somehow...

 

If you talking about a new game!

That means you guys going to split your attention between 2 projects.

Are you sure you not biting more than what you can chew?

And i don't need to say no more .

[diogofalcao]

ED released SU27 Flanker on 1996, thats an old company still doing great. Of course things can go wrong and if we love the game we need to show support. What they do is very complex, it's not just a plataform game with scripted action.

 

If you want your game to be improved fast, you need to give them support and you give support by buying the products. I have almost every modules (spent thousands of dollars) and I am proud of it. It gives me hours of fun.

 

Do not just complain like a child, everybody here is probably 40+ years old. Buy the modules so the company can grow even more and do the things that you want.

[FoxxyTrotty]

every patch now comes alongside the usual

 

"get older stuff people paid for 2-3 years ago working before releasing even more new stuff"

 

vs

 

"ED do an amazing job, go back to stable release if u don't like it"

 

so lets hope today marks a change of course for ED to try combine the best of both these statements: new stuff that don't work won't be pushed into public beta, and remain closed alpha until such time obvious bugs are squashed and larger numbers are unlikely to run into issues most of the time.

[Flamin_Squirrel]

I see your point, and it would be completely valid for, say, chopping a pile of wood. You look at the size of the pile, and you can estimate how much time you'll need to chop it. Software development - based on my limited experience - is not like this. You don't see the exact size of the pile. You think you're almost there, then out of nowhere, 10 more logs appear. Unforseen bugs can come up and make you run in circles for much longer than you'd like. That's why it's hard to give estimates. The only moral of the story is that they should be more careful, which they already are, the new estimate being "April-May 2020" rather than a date.

 

What you say is totally reasonable, but you've missed my point. ED said they were going to do something, took people's money on that basis, and then didn't deliver. Some customers (it might be a few, it might be a lot) will consider that a breach of trust and never come back. Whether you or I consider the difficulties of software development an extenuating circumstance wont change that, which is why this unfortunate event is something I hope ED never repeat.

[DBFlyguy]

ED released SU27 Flanker on 1996, thats an old company still doing great. Of course things can go wrong and if we love the game we need to show support. What they do is very complex, it's not just a plataform game with scripted action.

 

If you want your game to be improved fast, you need to give them support and you give support by buying the products. I have almost every modules (spent thousands of dollars) and I am proud of it. It gives me hours of fun.

 

Do not just complain like a child, everybody here is probably 40+ years old. Buy the modules so the company can grow even more and do the things that you want.

 

So... the company has been around since 1996 and they still haven't figured out how to competently complete their products and your suggestion is to throw more money at them???? Seriously? Ok boomer. :lol:

[Kate Perederko]

A couple questions Kate. But first, thank you for the open communication. This has almost become an AMA. It's refreshing to get a transparent look at the future of our favorite sim.

 

1. You mention the Hornet having a potential end of EA timeframe of the end of 2020. There seems to still be a lot to do, and some things, especially quality of life improvements, have been missing for years even when posted to the wishlist thread. Stuff like Grid entry for coordinates, that currently needs to have a JTAC mod to convert grid coordinates to lat/long so you can enter waypoints. There's also the idea that you are just now finishing the Litening TGP, and then have to create the ATFLIR within the next 8 months to meet the schedule. Is this seen as being realistic? Has ATFLIR development been ongoing alongside the Litening? Will both be available in the release, or will ATFLIR just replace the Litening?

 

2. As a VR user, we have a number of issues we run into. Stutter and frame drops are very perceptible for us obviously, but I'd say one of my biggest issues is spotting. Currently, we have the option for labels, but even the 'dot' option is very large, are visible through the cockpit or other objects, and out of position for where the target is, which can make identifying the location of the target, vs the label, quite difficult. Are there any ideas on improving the ability to spot in VR (if not for our pancake players as well)? Perhaps have label options where they don't project through your cockpit or other solid surfaces, and possibly a neutral color at a distance where you couldn't visually ID the target anyways? Then within reasonable visual range, the labels could shift to red and blue, as you'd be able to identify the aircraft as friend or foe in real life, but the detail in VR just doesn't let us do it currently. I don't know what the answer is, but even knowing you recognize the issue would be nice.

 

3. Can you possibly go into detail on what benefits multi-threading may bring to performance? Is the limiting factor currently a lack of computing power for the number of tasks needing to be processed? What load will other threads be able to take up? There's graphical implementations that have seemed to heavily impact performance, especially VR users, such as the deferred shading that was introduced awhile back and made standard. Will any of these graphical features see a performance benefit from CPU related tasks being able to be moved to other threads? Obviously, as you said about the OB performance and Vulkan performance benefits, nothing is certain. I just wanted to get your take. I know you guys got burned with the "VR improvement" claim awhile back that didn't seem to have as much effect as you were hoping it would.

 

Thanks. Keep at it, stay safe and healthy, and please oh please, keep up this kind of community engagement!

 

Thank you for writing it all.

 

1. Let's discuss it when we'll publish the 2020 roadmap for Hornet.

 

2. We are looking for a solution. There are many aspects to cover.

 

3. benefits of the multi-threading... nowadays processors have several cores and we still use one. We'd love to use all 16 cores, for example, to calculate dynamic campaigns for DCS in the background or prepare graphics for the next couple of frames.

[VirusAM]

DCS World roadmap update

 

Kate,

When we can get flight model modified for Hornet?

The flight model with full flap is definitely having some problem.

It will pitch up like a rocket when full afterburner.

 

 

 

While we are here could you also tell us something on this bug?

Could you tell the team to see what they can do?

 

 

[REPORTED] The SA page open causes massive stuttering.

https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink/topic?share_fid=74365&share_tid=248825&url=https%3A%2F%2Fforums%2Eeagle%2Eru%2Fshowthread%2Ephp%3Ft%3D248825&share_type=t&link_source=app

 

 

We are having it in both release and open beta and has been there for a long time (maybe 6 months). Basically using Hornet SA page with the countermeasures ON cut the fps in half, putting CM to off, or switching to a different page brings back the fps to normal.

All we have is that the status is reported but not much news if the problem was addressed or not.

Thanks again

Edited April 15, 2020 by VirusAM

[Revelation]

...omitted garbage...

 

There's not a single game developer that doesn't run into delays and set backs or buggy releases. EA, Cyberpunk, Dice, Treyarch, Infinity Ward, Bethesda, CIG - just to name a few. Oh and their budgets and staff are magnitudes larger.

 

I hope you enjoy your time in "time out."

[VirusAM]

DCS World roadmap update

 

Thank you for writing it all.

 

 

 

1. Let's discuss it when we'll publish the 2020 roadmap for Hornet.

 

 

 

2. We are looking for a solution. There are many aspects to cover.

 

 

 

3. benefits of the multi-threading... nowadays processors have several cores and we still use one. We'd love to use all 16 cores, for example, to calculate dynamic campaigns for DCS in the background or prepare graphics for the next couple of frames.

 

 

 

The 3 is what I really like to hear from you.

Many of us here invested in the best (and most expensive) consumer cpu money can buy but in DCS (in most flight sims is the same anyway) especially in VR that don’t suffice.

 

But the 2 is really important as well, some years ago dcs had the scaling option, that was ruled out (never understood for what reason) while out there there are extensive studies that show how professional sims use the same system and why it is so.

Please consider also that or what the guy up there wrote.

Thanks again

Edited April 15, 2020 by VirusAM

[Flamin_Squirrel]

There's not a single game developer that doesn't run into delays and set backs or buggy releases. EA, Cyberpunk, Dice, Treyarch, Infinity Ward, Bethesda, CIG - just to name a few. Oh and their budgets and staff are magnitudes larger.

 

I hope you enjoy your time in "time out."

 

ED shouldn't get off the hook because other developers miss their dates too.

[Dusty44]

Showing our age a bit here Shagrat! :)

 

Oh how far we have came.

[M1Combat]

Hey Kate :). Thank you for the posts. <-- few words but big meaning :)...

 

I'd like to point out (and I know you aren't new around here) that as a forum community we have proven to be fairly immature and demanding. We've exposed ourselves as selfish, stubborn and very single minded as individuals... and each of our single minds appears to be focused on a different aspect of the sim as well :).

 

I fully understand that within the framework of our collective... there are both good and bad apples :). I'm sure I have been both.

 

To the point...

 

Please just understand this and understand that before each post, and especially around each release date, hit or miss, that the community will always find a way to feel that it's both the best and worst thing that could have happened to us :).

 

Roll with it please :). I have watched these forums for many years and have existed within the cycle of open transparency, community lash out and the resulting closed communication a few times. This is the cycle that has formed this post :).

 

You're doing awesome so far BTW :).

[Kate Perederko]

Hi Kate, I appreciate you here engaging with us and answering our questions.

 

Since you mentioned an improved terrain engine with the ability to more quickly build maps a bit up, I'd like to ask about a personal desire of mine.

 

It has been stated publicly some time ago that the plan is to eventually model the entire world map and have a true "DCS World". This is obviously a massive undertaking and not something I expect anytime soon, not even in the next few years.

 

I'd just like to ask if you have any comments on this. Will the new terrain engine work you mentioned allow for larger terrains than we currently have now, as an intermediate step toward that long term goal?

 

Will we eventually see things like expanding the Caucasus and/or Persian Gulf map to include more areas than it currently does, etc?

 

Are you able to speak at all on the long term strategy to get us to that eventual goal of a true world map, even if things are still very far away?

 

I think that the community is already overhyped with Vulkan API and waits for years it's implementation. I don't want to start to talk about the model of the entire world map at this stage. There is no doubt that we want to have the entire world but we have a large technical debt to cover first.

 

Caucasus will not be updated to even a current set of technologies we used for THe Channel. We might consider developing a new Caucasus map to avoid problems with thousands of missions that are created for the current map. Of course, the old one will stay in DCS.

 

Persian Gulf expansion, well, probably it will be next map and not the PG.

[SmirkingGerbil]

Appreciate the updates, very much appreciated.

 

All good from my perspective.

[hipp55]

Kate

Thank you for being so up front with all this information. At times it is tough to hear that things are not arriving as soon has we would like, especially during this lock down. I trust you are doing your best. We do not know all the intricacies of the business. My only true regret was when I saw that the Black Shark had been relegated to sometime in the future. I was under the impression it was to be upgraded to the Black Shark 3 this year.

Thanks for your dedication.

All the best to you and your team.

RH

[SilverHawk94]

Thanks for the update but I rarely ever play multiplayer. Too bad we couldnt get a release for the single player but I understand. Keep up the good work.

Edited April 15, 2020 by SilverHawk94

[MTrenda]

Kate,

 

Thanks for the update. it is always nice to get information from the top. I am sure that you have a lot of tasks on your plate along with a personal life to manage. It is nice to hear that you guys are really looking into the network transfer of data, even if you are unsure how to fix it, at this time. This is a hard nut to crack since you have no control on the equipment, line speed, distance or overhead. Looking forward to seeing how you resolve, or minimize the out of sync potential.

 

Keep up the great work and let the teams know that we ask so much of you guys because you gave us such a great product. We appreciate the hard work.

 

Thanks

Falcon

[zaelu]

I think that the community is already overhyped with Vulkan API and waits for years it's implementation. I don't want to start to talk about the model of the entire world map at this stage. There is no doubt that we want to have the entire world but we have a large technical debt to cover first.

 

 

 

 

How absurd would be to have DCS World in its entirety moved to the world from MSFS 2020? I mean. Microsoft are opened for 3rd parties. This would really save a lot of work which imho has all the chances to fail or fall short.

[hein22]

When can we expect the SC to be delivered? Have you set a new date?

[shagrat]

The base problem for multiplayer is the delivery of packets. One user play with high-speed LAN, other plays via Wi-Fi, different countries, different providers, suddenly my neighbor started to play a game as well, or U2 started to stream the concert via youtube and networks started to manage the packets in a different way and my provider equipment decided to give more bandwidth to somebody else.

 

 

 

If I use a browser it might be okay or if I use a strategic computer game it's fine and easy to manage. But if I use dynamic world with 100K+ objects and possibly to switch many miles away by jumping from one high-speed aircraft to another that's a different story because my computer and the server I work with need to transfer a lot of data with milliseconds. And we really cannot predict if suddenly one of the users starts to receive the packets a bit slower than the others... and everyone is desynced.

 

 

 

We have an approach to handle such situations. It worked for us for some time. Now it's not working and we started to create a new approach and test a new mathematical model for it. I cannot tell the deadlines.

I understand the troubles of caching packets vs dismissing packets to cope with different latencies. Real-time connection over WAN is a "nasty beast", to say the least. And considering data consistency of an object database with dozens of clients constantly updating stuff and sending it to the server in real time sounds even more challenging. I guess you did already investigate RTP with non-media payloads? We found at work that RTP based streams (like WebRTC) handle latency, exceptionally well...

Maybe another input relevant for this, at least German network providers seems to have changed traffic shaping due to the massive push for Home-Office on request of the government. In theory it shouldn't affect something like DCS, as the priority inside a provider network is defined when initiating the route, so it is either fast or slow, but should not change drastically in-between due to priorization...

[VirusAM]

When can we expect the SC to be delivered? Have you set a new date?

 

 

 

She already answered to that.

Some post higher.

If in the 2 weeks they don’t solve MP issues they will CONSIDER sp only release

[Fisherman82]

Thank you for the update,

 

Just one question, can you give a hint about where in the pipeline updates for the Hornets navigational system are?

 

Primarily the ability to enter an offset from a waypoint, a much awaited feature for CAS missions.

[Kate Perederko]

The 3 is what I really like to hear from you.

Many of us here invested in the best (and most expensive) consumer cpu money can buy but in DCS (in most flight sims is the same anyway) especially in VR that don’t suffice.

 

But the 2 is really important as well, some years ago dcs had the scaling option, that was ruled out (never understood for what reason) while out there there are extensive studies that show how professional sims use the same system and why it is so.

Please consider also that or what the guy up there wrote.

Thanks again

 

Yes, we had the calling option and some other features that we had to put on the scales together with other options that are available in DCS now and were not possible at previous stack.

 

It's always a compromise.

[Beirut]

Vaccine or carrier first?

 

 

Place yer bets, gentlemen!