Please, remove unnecessary liveries from DCS builds. Put them in separate packs

[SharpeXB]

5 hours ago, MAXsenna said:

Is it really different? It could be used for both and that means it could serve both sides, no? 

There should be a difference between official skins and user made ones. Right now there really isn’t. The problem again is that altering or removing the skins in multiplayer can be a way to cheat. Using an official skin should give you the assurance that other players actually see it. The other CFS game has a community skin installer but it’s only used for the community skins, the official ones aren’t alterable. It’s a good solution. But it’s really used to easily add more skins, not to remove the official ones. 

[MAXsenna]

There should be a difference between official skins and user made ones. Right now there really isn’t. The problem again is that altering or removing the skins in multiplayer can be a way to cheat. Using an official skin should give you the assurance that other players actually see it. The other CFS game has a community skin installer but it’s only used for the community skins, the official ones aren’t alterable. It’s a good solution. But it’s really used to easily add more skins, not to remove the official ones. 

I agree with this. A module manager could solve a lot of. Could probably be mated with the IC so you would know what skins servers require. As always it really boils down to that we need an official launcher IMHO.

Sent from my MAR-LX1A using Tapatalk

Hi,
I agree with the thread creator. The first thing I do when I have reinstalled a module or after an update has been carried out: delete these liveries. A Livery Fictional Russia Air Force for the FA-18C? Or a Livery Fictional Royal Norwegian Air Force for the A-10C? Away with it.

They come with fictional skins by default? Didn't know that.

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[Northstar98]

1 minute ago, MAXsenna said:

They come with fictional skins by default? Didn't know that.

Yeah, quite a few do.

MiG-21bis for instance has Argentine, British, Swedish and even liveries for wholly fictional countries like Northeria and Southeria (and none of its liveries are sorted by country either, every livery is available to every country, meaning if you pick say, the USSR, you'll get all 70 or so of its liveries to scroll through when it could be condensed into the half-dozen or so actually applicable to the USSR); the Ka-50 has at least British and American liveries; F/A-18 and A-10 both have at least Russian liveries.

Depending on where you drawn the line, technically every livery that isn't the US is fictional for our variant of the F-16C (though at least the majority of other liveries are former/current operators of the F-16, just not of the CM Block 50).

[Exorcet]

4 hours ago, Beirut said:

I understand some people only want historical skins, but my Ka-50 came with an RCAF skin and I was happy to have it.

It's all about what one intends to do. Some people want nothing but a 100% accurate recreation of history, some people mod in Ace Combat skins, and then there are people in the middle.

All of this needs to be taken into account by module makers, which is another reason for having a livery manager. If we could choose then at least the space that liveries take up becomes a non factor for developers. Let each module come with 200 GB of liveries. I'll download them all until I don't have the space. That can't be done now because not everyone is going to have 500 GB (substitute with whatever number if you don't consider 500 realistic) just for liveries and expecting people to buy space just for that is unreasonable.

[MAXsenna]

Yeah, quite a few do.
MiG-21bis for instance has Argentine, British, Swedish and even liveries for wholly fictional countries like Northeria and Southeria (and none of its liveries are sorted by country either, every livery is available to every country, meaning if you pick say, the USSR, you'll get all 70 or so of its liveries to scroll through when it could be condensed into the half-dozen or so actually applicable to the USSR); the Ka-50 has at least British and American liveries; F/A-18 and A-10 both have at least Russian liveries.
Depending on where you drawn the line, technically every livery that isn't the US is fictional for our variant of the F-16C (though at least the majority of other liveries are former/current operators of the F-16, just not of the CM Block 50).

Yeah, come to think of it. Ka-50 cold start Nevada has a US Marines skin.
I don't really mind skins for incorrect variants of a served airframe. But A-10s with RNoAF roundels rubs me the wrong way, and clearly shows the need for a livery manager coupled with IC for servers. Not really part of the MP scene, but this might actually be good for it. I'd assume lots of sever admins would jump at the opportunity to purge them for fictional skins.

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[Northstar98]

2 minutes ago, MAXsenna said:

I don't really mind skins for incorrect variants of a served airframe. But A-10s with RNoAF roundels rubs me the wrong way, and clearly shows the need for a livery manager coupled with IC for servers.

Yeah, that's fair enough.

For the most part I don't delete fictional liveries (espeically when I've got plenty of space), but for some liveries I have made edits to the description.lua, such that they're sorted by country (as I think they should be) and in some cases I've renamed them to make liveries less ambiguous and in a way that's more consistent - this way I don't have several unique liveries for the same plane that are called the exact same thing, so I don't which is which just from the name.

[Beirut]

1 hour ago, Exorcet said:

It's all about what one intends to do. Some people want nothing but a 100% accurate recreation of history, some people mod in Ace Combat skins, and then there are people in the middle.

 

I just get tired of grey skins. Therio makes nice CadPat skins for several modules - waiting for his F-15E CadPat skin -  and that suits me just fine. I want the skin to look cool, and preferably RCAF, that's my criteria.

 

1 hour ago, Exorcet said:

All of this needs to be taken into account by module makers, which is another reason for having a livery manager. If we could choose then at least the space that liveries take up becomes a non factor for developers. Let each module come with 200 GB of liveries. I'll download them all until I don't have the space. That can't be done now because not everyone is going to have 500 GB (substitute with whatever number if you don't consider 500 realistic) just for liveries and expecting people to buy space just for that is unreasonable.

 

I'm of the opinion that anyone who has hundreds of GB of skins is such a fanatic that having DCS on it's own 1 or 2TB drive is a non-issue. And anyone who does have 200GB+ of skins and is complaining about lacking storage space is having issues with reality.

 

Same thing with someone who has a 1060 and 16GB of RAM and wants to run battles over Cairo at 1440P with maxed graphics. He's going to have to manage his expectations.

[Exorcet]

8 minutes ago, Beirut said:

I'm of the opinion that anyone who has hundreds of GB of skins is such a fanatic that having DCS on it's own 1 or 2TB drive is a non-issue.

You're acting like that completely solves the problem, but it doesn't. You can get as big a drive as you want, but there will always be a way to fill it up. Sure, you can buy more space when this happens, but if you had the option to uninstall 20 GB of unused files, and that was the space you needed, and could save yourself the money and effort of acquiring the new drive, why wouldn't you do that?

 

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And anyone who does have 200GB+ of skins and is complaining about lacking storage space is having issues with reality.

I think you missed the point of my post. With a livery manager we can have 200 GB of skins because no one would be forced to download them all. Obviously if you fill your drive with skins, that is your own fault.

Stepping outside of DCS though, I feel like you still have a bit of a narrow view on this. Some people might build PC's just for DCS, some might not. Either way there is plenty of software and files out there to fill any amount of space. More options for managing disc space can only be a good thing. Even in the realm of 1 TB SSD's, you supposed to leave about 10% space free to optimize performance. That's 100 GB. If you have 5 primary programs/installations/whatever that allow fine control of their space use and you can only get 20 GB out of each, that's the difference between full slow SSD and a nearly full but still fast SSD. It's easy to create the limited number of hypothetical situations where 20 GB doesn't matter, but it's just as easy to come up with situations where it matters a lot.

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Same thing with someone who has a 1060 and 16GB of RAM and wants to run battles over Cairo at 1440P with maxed graphics. He's going to have to manage his expectations.

A more relevant analogy I'd think is someone asking for middle ground between 1440p and 720p (possibly while everyone else fails to consider the value in that and says to get a used 3070 or something because those cards have been around a while and should be cheap).

[Maverick87Shaka]

On 9/16/2023 at 1:05 AM, SkateZilla said:

Compressing Folders makes load times extreme, plus hits on ram and disk during games as new assets need to be de-compressed.

Honestly, if you dont want them, simply delete them.

But 60 GB in 2023 is nothing, there's 12/18/22/44 TB Drives.

I have Literally EVERY Module on my External M.2 and it's no where near taking up 2TB,

It sits somewhere around 650 GB Total Folder Size, 
133 GB is the \CoreMods\ and the \Bazar\ Folder for all the AI Aircraft, Weapons, Objects Shapes and Textures
  53 GB is the \Mods\aircraft\ Folder for all Player Aircraft Modules Cockpit Shapes Textures and Systems Coding
365 GB is the \Mods\terrain\ Folder for all Terrains, Textures, Terrain Shapes etc.
     8 GB is the \Mods\tech\ for Asset Packs Shapes and Textures, as well as GPS Systems, Shapes and Textures
   60 GB is the \Mods\campaigns\.

So Removing the Liveries Honestly in the grand scheme of things doesn't do anything ~ 5-10% of the total install size.

There are more concerning things in the core files that need attention and cleansed.

 

This is the point to me!
Remove Liveries it will not solve the problem probably for all the people that is running DCS from relative "small" disk.

Compared to other modern (2023) games, the size seams reasonable for what it has to offers.
I don't want to be rude, but probably people has to think to upgrade their disks to keep up with the current requirements.

Pick up a new disk is like pickup a new module in terms of price, so before adding something new to the own collection, probably it's better to upgrade disk if you don't have enough space, before adding stuff to DCS World

 

[Beirut]

11 minutes ago, Exorcet said:

You're acting like that completely solves the problem, but it doesn't. You can get as big a drive as you want, but there will always be a way to fill it up. Sure, you can buy more space when this happens, but if you had the option to uninstall 20 GB of unused files, and that was the space you needed, and could save yourself the money and effort of acquiring the new drive, why wouldn't you do that?

 

Again, I have no issue with someone having a livery manager. if that makes you happy, more power to you. My point is just that storage space is available, inexpensive, and required anyway given DCS' large footprint.

 

11 minutes ago, Exorcet said:

 

I think you missed the point of my post. With a livery manager we can have 200 GB of skins because no one would be forced to download them all. Obviously if you fill your drive with skins, that is your own fault.

 

And if someone makes you a livery manger, I will toast your happiness. I return, however, to the point that there many be several good arguments to be made for a livery manager, but storage space is probably last on the list. 

 

11 minutes ago, Exorcet said:

Stepping outside of DCS though, I feel like you still have a bit of a narrow view on this. Some people might build PC's just for DCS, some might not. Either way there is plenty of software and files out there to fill any amount of space. More options for managing disc space can only be a good thing. Even in the realm of 1 TB SSD's, you supposed to leave about 10% space free to optimize performance. That's 100 GB. If you have 5 primary programs/installations/whatever that allow fine control of their space use and you can only get 20 GB out of each, that's the difference between full slow SSD and a nearly full but still fast SSD. It's easy to create the limited number of hypothetical situations where 20 GB doesn't matter, but it's just as easy to come up with situations where it matters a lot.

 

I have a 1TB NVME that only has DCS and the Steam programs required to run it. No other games or programs. I'm at 550GB with all the maps, most of the modules, and some mods and skins. I figure that leaves me 250GB to use before I hit 80%, which I have heard is a good place to stop. You might be right at 90%, I don't know. In either case, 1TB just for DCS seems to be a reasonable amount of space and can be had for less than $50. And again, my point is that the whole storage thing becomes moot at that point. And if a person splurges and drops $100 for a 2TB SSD for DCS, then they'll have space for years to come.  

 

DCS, certainly for flightsim hobbyists, is a resource and money hog. There's no way around it. That's why I look at an issue like this, see that it can be remedied with hardware we want and need anyway - and that can be had on the cheap - and I just don't see it as a problem. If the argument is to have it because it's convenient or helps with some kind of MP issue, I'm 100% on your side. As far as storage goes, I think it's a non-issue.

[RazerVon]

On 9/22/2023 at 1:24 PM, Rudel_chw said:

 

Sure, I don't use every livery that I have all the time ... but I do enjoy my freedom to choose a given livery from within a wide choice ... and I don't appreciate the users that want to reduce my freedom of choice just so they can save a few dollars of disk capacity.

 

Yes, and if you want to use those, then you "subscribe" to them in a repository.
And it can be coded to where joining a multiplayer server forces you to download the liveries it supports into a temporary folder that you as the player can delete manually later if you wish.
Servers can even have a mandatory/optional liveries line of code. Say for instance it forced people to download low-vis liveries, but have others as optional.
Oh, and the server-forced ones can be the lower-resolution versions.

Both things other games support. Multiplayer servers on some games even download mods for you upon joining.
All these features BTW are from games released over 5 years ago.

 

@SharpeXB
Sir, you are making excuses for dated features that harm the experience for people that play more than one game in a month.
I want DCS to improve and modernize. DLSS is coming this year hopefully; and a repository of liveries that players can use, as well as multiplayer servers mandate/recommend [support] would make the game less intensive & more efficient.

Edited September 29, 2023 by RazerVon

[SharpeXB]

56 minutes ago, RazerVon said:

Sir, you are making excuses for dated features that harm the experience for people that play more than one game in a month

Not sure what that even means… the only “dated” feature here is the perception that hard drive sizes are measured in gigabytes

Although I imagine the future for games is that they’ll stream all your content instead of living on your drive. Like a certain other flight sim with a very large map. 

[Galinette]

Currently, the base DCS install contains about 50GB of module liveries only. You don't need to own the corresponding modules, they are installed for everyone. This also potentially causes a high stress on VRAM in multiplayer, if a lot of users use different liveries.

With the F-4 incoming, this will likely not improve in coming months.

The disk size option is alone, I think, something that prevents selling a couple of modules, for lower budget users that have a full SSD and try keeping their DCS installation slim.

Having 50GB of liveries should definitely be something optional. There should be fewer / lower resolution liveries in the base game. Then, either install additional or higher resolution liveries with aircraft modules, or with dedicated free texture pack modules.

 

Edited November 8, 2023 by Kercheiz

[Exorcet]

Previously discussed topic:

 

Edited November 8, 2023 by Exorcet

[Northstar98]

If there was a livery manager, that allowed you to select which liveries you have installed, that would be perfect.

Even if it was just a blacklist in a configuration file to prevent them from being redownloaded every time an update or repair is run, would be perfectly sufficient.

The aformentioned repair and updater utilities already have a way of determining which liveries are and are not installed, as well as those that have been modified, so as to redownload only those either not present or modified - so all the underlying functionality is already present in a fully working state - all that's needed is a way to control which livery files to exclude.

Personally though, I think by default, it should install everything, as it does now, so that only those wishing to remove liveries would ever need to touch anything. For everybody else, they wouldn't need to do anything.

 

And before somebody inevitably brings it up, storage space being plentiful and cheap doesn't justify why people should fill them up with files they don't necessarily need, want or use. For a fun game I suggest taking a shot everytime somebody brings that point up.

I have plenty of storage space available - why does that mean I should fill it up with unnecessary files I don't need or want?

Spoiler

Especially when in some cases, I'm actually making fixes to liveries (for instance, the MiG-21bis' liveries are completely unsorted, meaning if I select USSR as the country, I have to scroll through a list that's over 10x larger than it needs to be, just to find the half a dozen or so liveries actually relevant to the USSR, if I wanted to find the Syrian liveries, I would have to sort through a list over 30x larger than it needs to be). But all these fixes either get undone or liveries get duplicated, every time an update or repair is done. It doesn't take much time to drag over the edited files and delete any duplicates, but it's time that certainly adds up and it's time I wouldn't have to spend if there was a way of blacklisting files from being redownloaded.

And also before somebody brings it up, no, this request absolutely would not mean that livery development would need to stop or that livery development would be hindered - not in the slightest. That's non-sequitur nonsense and I've no idea where it came from. If the module manager as it currently exists doesn't prevent or hinder new module, terrain, or campaign development, then something like this wouldn't do the same for liveries either.

The only other argument is that liveries might sometimes be something you want to have enforced, for instance, to prevent cheating - that's absolutely something I can agree with and in such a case, there's good news! Like the repair and updater utilities, there's another system designed specifically for this purpose - the integrity checker. I would be absolutely fine if liveries were something the integrity checker checks for, at the discretion of the server owner (for instance a checkbox for either enforce stock liveries or enforce host liveries).

Edited November 9, 2023 by Northstar98

[Rudel_chw]

52 minutes ago, Kercheiz said:

Having 50GB of liveries should definitely be something optional.

 

May I remind you that you would not be able to actually save 50 GB, unless you are happy with no liveries at all. A more realistic figure would be the saving of 20-30 GB ... is it worth the hassle of having other users forced to download the liveries they want?

[WinterH]

7 minutes ago, Rudel_chw said:

is it worth the hassle of having other users forced to download the liveries they want?

Yes, it is.

[Northstar98]

1 hour ago, WinterH said:

Yes, it is.

And if it was an opt-out system (which I'd argue to be preferable), users wouldn't be forced to download extra liveries at all - they would need to do precisely nothing and they'd have all the liveries available, completely unchanged from how it works now.

That way the only people who would be "forced" to do anything at all, are those wishing to opt-out of whatever liveries.

Edited November 8, 2023 by Northstar98

[Exorcet]

10 minutes ago, WinterH said:

Yes, it is.

Even as someone on the side of wanting more liveries, I don't mind having to click a download button if it's all in an easy to use system like the module manager.

My preference would be what @Northstar98 suggested though.

Either way, a manager for liveries benefits pretty much everyone.

Edited November 8, 2023 by Exorcet

[Northstar98]

10 hours ago, Exorcet said:

Even as someone on the side of wanting more liveries, I don't mind having to click a download button if it's all in an easy to use system like the module manager.

My preference would be what @Northstar98 suggested though.

Either way, a manager for liveries benefits pretty much everyone.

Exactly - don't get me wrong there's plenty of additional liveries I would want to install, should they be developed (such as Tomcat liveries appropriate for the Saratoga, Ranger and Independence, more liveries for the S-3B and B-52H, just to name a few examples).

But there's also others I don't use and don't see a need for. I've also made small fixes to some of the description.lua for some liveries, those fixes will get overwritten or the liveries will get duplicated each time I run a repair. It doesn't take a lot of time to copy over the fixed files, but it's time that certainly adds up and it's time I wouldn't need to spend if there was a livery manager - I would only need to do it the once.

Whichever way you slice it, the current system caters for one group of people, a livery manager would cater for everybody.

Edited November 9, 2023 by Northstar98

[buceador]

This is simply about the concept of choice and choice is one of the fundamental cornerstones of life. 

[SharpeXB]

Deleting or manipulating liveries can be a way of cheating online. For example deleting the camouflage skins for aircraft with bright metal default liveries. Realize how these work, you need to have the other players skin installed in order to see it. I’m surprised these aren’t included in the integrity check. 
 

And yeah hard drive space is so cheap this topic is rather irrelevant. 50GB is like $1.60 worth of space. I don’t think the majority of players want to be bothered with a complicated install over this. 

[MAXsenna]

4 hours ago, Northstar98 said:

For a fun game I suggest taking a shot everytime somebody brings that point up.

Wouldn't be much flying then...

As always I'm in support of choice, (no matter the price of storage), and the best choice would be a livery manager supporting both official liveries and linked with the liveries from the user files. 

The usual suspects are here I can see, and I agree that liveries should be part of the Integrity Check!

[Galinette]

6 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Deleting or manipulating liveries can be a way of cheating online. For example deleting the camouflage skins for aircraft with bright metal default liveries. Realize how these work, you need to have the other players skin installed in order to see it. I’m surprised these aren’t included in the integrity check. 
 

And yeah hard drive space is so cheap this topic is rather irrelevant. 50GB is like $1.60 worth of space. I don’t think the majority of players want to be bothered with a complicated install over this. 

When an anti-cheat mechanism is not effective (if you want to cheat aircraft visibility, you can hack with ReShade, which can't be IC checked) and increases the base game size by 50GB for everyone, it's not a good idea...

Now count the VRAM GB $ cost of those liveries. It's not a secret, VRAM use explodes in multiplayer, while terrain is the same. That's not 1.60$ for 50GB

(And wait the evolution of that 50GB figure in one year...)

Edited November 8, 2023 by Kercheiz

[Galinette]

Or, if you want to leave all liveries, having a light, low detail aircraft (model and textures) that can be upgraded to a high detail version on demand.

I don't need having rivets modeled on the stuff I destroy, only on the aircraft I fly.