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B-17 wish


Captain Gaming

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Hey guys! SO ive been thinking. Alot of us in the community would love a big ol bomber to fly. so why not the classic B-17 Flying Fortress. Now i know ED has said theyd never do it for a number of reasons. so i will go down the list and debunk them! Now with this in mind, im putting this out there not just for the Developers to se, but the community. Cause lets be honest, the community is doing better than ED or any of them ever have. Cause we listen to one another and work with each other instead of our own interest. (but thats a debate for another time) 

REASONS:

1. An aircraft with more than 2 engines doesnt work in our engine.. Hercules works with 4 engines, and simulates if you lose one, the flight model changes. 

2. Most of our audience is single player based... ok, Why Couldnt you make missions for bombing raids, being escorted and being shot at? Id play the hell out of it.

3.Multicrew of more than 2 doesnt work....Huey. It comes down to them wanting to put the effort in. If they want something to work they make it work.

4.To many Crewmembers are needed to fly it... Not entirely, you need a Pilot, Bombardier (who can double up as a gunner, or copilot when not bombing), and 4 gunners (who can be AI, until taken over by a person).  

 

With all the WWII stuff upcoming, i think this could be a big move for ED to show they want to listen to the community. And since there are so few actually flying, time is running out to get proper sounds from them. I will also post screen shots from my flight sim of the B-17 i fly. If anyone else has anything they want to bring up as a possible objection id love to hear it. so we can work together on this. 

 

See you all in the sky

 

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Edited by Captain Gaming
Tried deleting images,
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Probably need to delete the screenshots from your other sim to keep your post up. But overall yea, it would be great. I'm sure it could be done and would sell well, but it would be an awfully expensive module to make. It would all depend on ED's cost benefit analysis to see if they think it would be more profitable than whatever else they're considering. 

 

Oh and yea B-17s saw action in the Pacific but this would veuch more of a European theatre so kinda the wrong sub forum.

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It’d be a massive project, other developers have said a 4 engined multi crew aircraft would be equivalent to 4/5 single seaters in dev time. 

 

So the question is would you prefer 5 single seaters or the B17? To monetarise this would you pay 5x the cost of the current single seaters for 1 aircraft?

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Flyable B-17 ?

 

No thanks !!


Here are some objections:

 

1. Such a massive, complicated aircraft... the development time would be overwhelming. And what would be sacrificed/postponed to do that work?

 

2. And then who is going to fly it appropriately in formation? Maybe once? But this is not compelling gameplay for be done over and over.

 

3. And we don't really have any maps of sufficient extent or suitable context. All DCS WW2 maps are very small.

 

I used to think it would be a good idea. But experience has made me change my mind. It really isn't a suitable for the DCS ecosystem. It is much better on the open-world simulators (as the screenshots posted suggest).

 

An AI B-17? Absolutely!! But we already have that.

Flyable B-17? No. Bad idea. No thanks.


See also:  https://forums.eagle.ru/topic/228785-please-add-the-b-17-flying-fortress/

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It isn't suitable for the DCS ecosystem because there is no realistic map to operate it from. However, Syria has shown us that the capabilities for a suitable map are there. It "just" (big quotation marks on that one) needs to be built.

 

You, Dietrich, of all people, probably remember people tearing apart the very idea of "DCS WW2", stating that it had no place within DCS World. Storm of War has shown that given a proper map and a "coherent" plane set, it was possible. If a module operates in a featureless "void", of course, it is doomed to fail. However, I think there is a place for a proper B-17 simulation. I played the hell out of the Mighty Eighth back in the days, and I think there is a market for that. Missions don't have to last hours... but I regularly see sessions in multiplayer go for an hour at the least for a single mission.


Edited by Charly_Owl
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Once y'all ge the DCS ecosystem figured out, I'd like to just say that, for the Pacific Theater of Operations, I would much prefer to see a B-24 Liberator/PB4Y Privateer produced than a B-17. Obviously I'd rather be able to fly it but if not, at least an AI version would make a great addition to both theaters of operations! 👍

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[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

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Not knocking anyone's opinion here but I actually grew up around several of these old beasts and it no more complicated starting up the B-17 than a B-25.  I will not argue the time it takes to probably create one at the level ED puts out, but with the company getting A LOT better at WW2 modules and learning how to do multi engine now with the Mossie, I would not count the old girl out.  

 

She still has a lot to bring to the table even with the current European maps we have.  I remember the old schools days of Flying Fortress on the PC.  Part of the fun was starting up, takeoff, circling the field, then heading across the channel to hit a factory and wondering if the clouds were going to interfere.  Then fighting off 109's and hoping the P-51's had enough fuel to stick around and support.  Right now we fly cover missions for the AI B-17's to drop bombs on targets so I fail to see the point of the maps are not big enough.

 

With the technology ED has now days, this is a no brainer.  No to mention they recently stated they originally had no desire to do a cargo module and that has now changed.  My best guess is the Anubis C-130 module will soon be reveled as the cargo module coming to DCS.  Its popularity went through the roof when he released it.  That is a 4 engine module with more complexities than the B-17.  If minds have changed on a cargo module, it would not surprise me one bit to see them change on heavy bombers.  

 

Bottom line, the Big Girl has her place in our virtual skies and deserves to be made a module.  Now the old argument of taking time away from other modules needs to stop.  ED and other 3rd party DEVs have already stated AND proven that they can work multiple modules simultaneously.  This year we got the Hind, Mossie, cloud system, and before the years out the Apache.  I would say they are doing pretty damn good job.  Not to mention all the additions to the F-18 and F-16.  With growth comes more employees and opportunity.  The third party Devs alone are starting to flourish in this community and grow.  I say the time has come and will soon be needed for heavy bombers.  I am ok with B-25's, P-61's, B-26's ect....... coming first, but lets not drop the heavies off the table.  A lot of us want them and this is only going to flesh out the WW2 scene and make more dreams come true. 

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  • 1 month later...

B17 is not really top of my list, but I’d argue ED should be developing this pronto if they want to get more cash and players into this game.

Masters of The Air - the next band of brothers - is under production right now .

https://warbirdsnews.com/warbird-articles/masters-of-the-air-production-beginning-to-unfold.html

ED could use the increased interest created by this show to attract new players if they had a B17.

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Considering the history of what DCS developers have produced so far, I have no reason why anyone would expect a B-17. It's a tactical fighter sim. It's all about what happens on the battlefield, there isn't any strategic aspect to the sim. And I'm fine with that. 

I really don't know why anyone wants to be in a heavy bomber, fly in a straight line, and get pounded by flak and fighters. All the while sitting in your seat and being able to do nothing about it. I'd rather be the hunter than the prey. But that's just me.

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The problem is the vast amount of work involved and how to monetarise that.
 

Comparisons with the C130 are very wide of the mark. The large number of crew stations would be a serious problem, from several of them you can see most of the inside of the aircraft. Nothing could be left out. Other dev’s have suggested 4 engine heavies would involve the work of 3/4 singles. So that’s 3 singles we’d be missing while waiting for the heavy. Then you have the pricing, 3/4 times the price of a single. How many people would pay that much?

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19 hours ago, nick10 said:

ED could use the increased interest created by this show to attract new players if they had a B17.

Nick, it would probably take ten years to make a DCS Flying Fortress. I first read about the F4U we're supposed to get back in 2015! We still don't have it. That show would be long forgotten by the time a B-17 came out.

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21 minutes ago, Ercoupe said:

I first read about the F4U we're supposed to get back in 2015! We still don't have it.

Yup but we shouldn't compare ED with 3rd party who is doing this as a part job or hobby after hours or even on the weekends only. Anyway there is another sim company who is making B-17 and B-24.

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12 minutes ago, rkk01 said:

Ooh, interesting… without breaking forum rules - where might I look???

Type this in google "a 10-Player WWII B-17 Simulator" and you even have screenshots of the cockpit. I've been playing old version of this sim made in 2000 you can try it too.

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12 hours ago, Ercoupe said:

Considering the history of what DCS developers have produced so far, I have no reason why anyone would expect a B-17. It's a tactical fighter sim. It's all about what happens on the battlefield, there isn't any strategic aspect to the sim. And I'm fine with that. 

I really don't know why anyone wants to be in a heavy bomber, fly in a straight line, and get pounded by flak and fighters. All the while sitting in your seat and being able to do nothing about it. I'd rather be the hunter than the prey. But that's just me.

Exactly, i hardly see ppl flying mossie online, when K-4 or D-9 are flying around. Being in B-17 would be just pounding nightmare, flak and players. Focus should stay on fighters and close air suport planes. 

System specs: I7 14700KF, Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Elite, 64GB DDR4 3600MHz, Gigabyte RTX 4090,Win 11, 48" OLED LG TV + 42" LG LED monitor

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Corsair looks close, and must surely be next…?

Based on previous ED statements, either / both the 109G-6 (?) or 190F-8 might still be on the books

… but with focus seemingly shifting to the Pacific and Nick Grey’s Hellcat comments, I’d expect the next news to be WW2 Marianas and F6F

One for the new year video??

(must admit it does seem difficult to see what the pipeline looks like for warbirds 😕 )


Edited by rkk01
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Reading the tea leaves...

WW2 Marianas in Q1-Q2 2022.

Corsair "fast follow"... Q3?

P-38 rumours in Q4 2022.

Hellcat - no real rumours till 2023.

I haven't heard anything substantial about new variants of existing modules.

Would really like to see someone, anyone, do the P-40A and a later variant.

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