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Hornet roadmap poll: a quick analysis of trends


TLTeo

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I decided to do a quick analysis of the current data of the Hornet roadmap poll (which you can visualize after filling it). The goal was to explore trends in the types of features use to provide a general guide for the development of current and future modules. The goal is not to identify individual features people may want; that's easy enough to do just looking at the histograms on the google page, as there are some very noticeable outliers (at least in principle - more on this later in the post). I also would like to take the opportunity to highlight a small detail of how a poll like this might work.

 

Note: I am an astrophysicist, so the rest of this post will be written in the way I would write a paper for publication - as thorough, dry and analytical as possible. If that's not for you, skip to the TLDR at the end and/or look at Figure 3 only.

 

 

First, I divided the long list of features into six generic categories. Again, I want to stress that my goal was just to look for broad trends in what exact features users want first. These types of features are somewhat arbitrarily defined. Also, I honestly don't know what some are (MUMI page for example), in which case I dumped these in the "Other" category. The six categories I picked are:

 

1) New Avionics. These include: Coupled autopilot modes, ACLS mode, New and updated HOTAS functions, ASPJ ECM jammer, Mark Points, Offset Waypoints

 

2) Sensor-related features: ATFLIR, AG radar EXP modes (1-2-3), GMT,GMTT and SEA search mode, Azimuth / Elevation air-to-air radar mode with AUTO IFF modes, Jamming targets not displayed on radar, should be in dugout, RWS RAID air-to-air radar sub-mode missing, Radar SPOT mode, AG radar interleaved mode (SEA and GMT), AG radar. AGR (air to ground ranging) mode, Datalink symbols, EW symbols, and AG mode for JHMCS, The missing function of WIDE radar auto acquisition mode, cannot slew it, Flight member TGT ground target SA page symbol missing

 

3) New Payloads and Weapons: SLAM-ER air-to-surface missile, GBU-32 JDAM, AIM-7P, Mk-77 firebomb, GBU-24 Paveway III LGB, BDU-45 Training Bomb, GEN-X decoy

 

4) Completion of current weapons and payloads: Harpoon, SEA radar directed mode (FTT), HARM Pre-Briefed mode, IN LAR cue is missing, LOFT modes, ARM, JPF, and other JDAM and JSOW remaining functions

 

5) Completion of current avionics and functions: Update flight model for ground effect, takeoff pitch effects, auto-pilot based on FPM, touch and go handling, and other remaining flight model issues, S/A and AUTO countermeasure modes, INS / GPS full simulation and alignment (carrier and ground), Correct possible flare number loaded

 

6) Other features: Adjust countermeasure programs when on ground,

Aircraft Setup Card in Options, Mission Card for 60 waypoints with properties (Sequence 1, 2, 3, PP, PB, Initial, etc.), Select AA and AG on ground, UFC BU page, MUMI Page, Fuel BIT (FLBIT) Page

 

At the time of running the analysis, 2675 people had taken part in the poll, so the details may change over time. At the time of writing this post, about 2900 people had participated, and those ~270 were not included in this post. However, I do not expect the general trends discussed here to change over time, because once again they are very broad and non-specific.

 

I took the distribution of grades for each function, and then grouped them in the six categories above. The grade distribution for each category is as follows:

 

GzS6Dcl.png

 

In general, people really seem to want old non-weapon related functions to be completed, they really want sensors (largely due to the air to ground radar being very anticipated), and everything else is more or less a draw. This however neglects one detail, which prevents trends from emerging as clearly: people are more likely to give certain grades than other. This can be shown by plotting the total number of votes each grade received, including every single function:

 

LXZ94nS.png

The black line is the average number of grades. As you can see, some (1, 5 and 10) are far above the average (shown by the black dashed line), while others are far below (2 and 9 especially). In order to have a clearer picture, I corrected the data plotted in the first figure by a factor:

 

<Avg_votes>/Total_Grades,

 

where <avg_votes> is the average number of votes received by the grades (so, the black line in the previous plot), while Total_Grades is the total number of grades assigned, including every single function. The resulting plot, which is essentially the first figure, but rescaled by giving each grade an equal "weight", is this:

 

STIhFdG.png

 

Now, the trends emerge much more clearly. People really, really want their air to ground radar, and they really, really want old functions to be completed. This was already obvious from the first plot. What is also more easily found now, however, is that they care more for new (mostly combat-related) avionics than quality of life stuff like mission cards. They also seem to prefer having old weapons completed over new avionics being integrated, as the average grade of the pink and blue plots is approximately ~7 and ~6 ish.

 

TLDR:

This simple study showed three broad trends in the requested features for the Hornet, which are likely applicable to all EA modules:

1) Somewhat unsurprisingly, people would rather have a few features that are complete and functioning, than all sorts of new features taking over development and not being completed

2) People care more for a few weapons to be well integrated and completed, than for having many weapons, none of which is complete

3) People prefer giving some grades (1,5,10) over others. This should be considered by ED when deciding which specific features to implement following their poll.

 

I hope this was interesting for whoever reads it, and that it may prove useful for ED and other 3rd party developers in choosing how to develop their modules and deal with EA in general!

 

Cheers,

 

Teo


Edited by TLTeo
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Very well done ! Great analysis .

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Great job TLTeo!

 

I was a bit dismayed from the original discussion thread where everyone was crying loudly about their favorite feature to be prioritized, but your data bring some consolation.

The trends you are showing support a rational approach of "I do not care which system will be implemented first, but when it is, I do not want to unlearn it with subsequent changes."

 

Thanks people! :thumbup:

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That's pretty interesting, and I like how it demonstrates the varied and interesting kinds of people in our community.

That said (and I'm really just ribbing you here) simply dumping MUMI into the 'other' category simply because you don't know what it is seems a little sloppy for an astrophysicist. That would fall under 'new avionics' so if you took too many shortcuts like that it could affect the results.

 

Still very interesting and I appreciate the effort.

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What strikes me most is the shockingly low number of participants.

 

Spitballing here but I’d guess that for every 10 people I run across who are new to DCS or ask me about it based on my activities, I’d say maybe 2 or 3 know that these Forums, Discord, Reddit, etc. exist.

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Thanks for the responses everyone :)

 

That's pretty interesting, and I like how it demonstrates the varied and interesting kinds of people in our community.

That said (and I'm really just ribbing you here) simply dumping MUMI into the 'other' category simply because you don't know what it is seems a little sloppy for an astrophysicist. That would fall under 'new avionics' so if you took too many shortcuts like that it could affect the results.

 

Still very interesting and I appreciate the effort.

 

I agree that these results are to be taken with a grain of salt. I actually tried googling the functions I didn't know about, but couldn't find anything unfortunately. By definition I figured an "other" category would absorb my lack of knowledge of the F18 well enough. Is there anything else I categorized incorrectly? Oh, and you'd be surprised at how sloppy astrophysics can be, given how far our "labs" are from Earth :P we are the scientific kings of sweeping things we ignore under a metaphorical rug.

 

I'll re-do the analysis with the latest data later today and post an update.


Edited by TLTeo
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I am very surprise that there was only 3500 players, on 28th, who have made the poll. Wags tell us that they have sell 80000 hornet.

 

 

 

96 % of customer have abandoned this module ? Bad news for the ED

More likely that 96% were either too busy to do the poll, couldnt be bothered or didnt see it.
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I am very surprise that there was only 3500 players, on 28th, who have made the poll. Wags tell us that they have sell 80000 hornet.

 

96 % of customer have abandoned this module ? Bad news for the ED

 

 

There's a massive difference between number of modules sold, and number of people who are enough into DCS to a) really pay attention to either these forums or their Newsletter and b) who can be bothered to give feedback in the poll.

 

 

I honestly don't think the number is surprising at all, with these polls if you don't really prod people you always get low turnout.

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I am very surprise that there was only 3500 players, on 28th, who have made the poll. Wags tell us that they have sell 80000 hornet.

 

96 % of customer have abandoned this module ? Bad news for the ED

 

 

With the same rights you could conclude that almost every owner does not see any reason to change what brought us here and trusts ED.

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I’m on here all the time,, must admit I did see original post,, but once I see your obviously an analyst,, all those pie charts and graphs,, scroll on by

 

Red

 

 

That's what the TLDR at the disclaimer at the top of the post re-directing you to the bottom of the post are for :P

 

 

I re-did the analysis with more participants in the poll (3501 at the time of writing), and also moved the MUMI page to the "New Avionics" category following Wrench's suggestion. The results are the same, if anything the trends are slightly more evident:

 

 

TYjpNnR.png


Edited by TLTeo
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What strikes me most is the shockingly low number of participants.

 

I still hesitate, because of not knowing what certain items in the list meant to be or what the things do, like:

 

AZ/EL page

RWS RAID

Radar SPOT mode

AIM-7P (Heck it's literally impossible to find out what's the difference between M and MH, now yet another type I don't know of what's special to it?)

IN LAR cue

UFC BU page

Gun sparks at night

GEN-X decoy

 

Giving a vote based on "dunno" doesn't seem valid for me...

dcsdashie-hb-ed.jpg

 

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I still hesitate, because of not knowing what certain items in the list meant to be or what the things do, like:

 

AZ/EL page

RWS RAID

Radar SPOT mode

AIM-7P (Heck it's literally impossible to find out what's the difference between M and MH, now yet another type I don't know of what's special to it?)

IN LAR cue

UFC BU page

Gun sparks at night

GEN-X decoy

 

Giving a vote based on "dunno" doesn't seem valid for me...

 

wasnt able to figure out all of it, but at least some points in your list. have a look here:

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=271197

 

cheers

hilok

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I looked at the poll and started to fill it in but like some others didn't know too much about many of those features or what the impact of each of those items would be on my gameplay so decided to leave it in the hands of those that know more. I guess what I'm saying is that there may be many others that are well engaged, and loving (or otherwise) the Hornet, though didn't complete the survey i.e. a limited number of survey respondents does not necessarily equate to limited engagement or interest in the Hornet or its ongoing development.

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I am very surprise that there was only 3500 players, on 28th, who have made the poll. Wags tell us that they have sell 80000 hornet.

 

96 % of customer have abandoned this module ? Bad news for the ED

 

If there are 80k copys of the Hornet sold alone then it's more like that the absolute majority of DCS users don't bother to visit the forums.

80000 Hornet copys versus "Most users ever online was 11,669, 11-04-2019 at 11:44 AM."

This puts all the "most user demand/want...." people into a whole new perspective.... :music_whistling:

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Community be like : MOAR BOOM DEVICES

 

What makes you think that? 1=least priority 10=most priority

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