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Boeing B-52 Stratofortress as a full fidellity paid module?? Would you buy?


Rick50

buy a B-52 module?  

147 members have voted

  1. 1. Would you buy a B-52 module?

    • YES YES YES!! of course!
      69
    • No.
      37
    • No, BUT only because the map sizes are too small for such a long range bomber. When map sizes are large enough for a full mission, I would buy this proposed module.
      12
    • Maybe. I might be interested in it, but I haven't made up my mind.
      19
    • I want heavies and I like bombers, but I don't want a B-52 because reasons.
      10
  2. 2. How much would you be willing to pay for a full module?

    • $80 for a single variant?
      64
    • $120 for a single modern variant if it cost a lot to develop ?
      25
    • $250, if it covered all the variants, all the ordnance it ever carried, with two dozen repaints?
      18
    • $0.00 because I don't want this module.
      40
  3. 3. Which variant /era /mission would you be most interested?

    • Early Cold War nuclear deterrence? Shark's tail, Bare metal SAC ?
      5
    • Vietnam War, Shark's tail B-52D variant, Big Belly modification, Arc Light missions, Linebacker 2 ?
      25
    • 1980's Cold War ALCM cruise missile carriers ?
      7
    • 1990's Desert Storm era, conventional weapons only?
      24
    • 2020 GWOT era, precision weapon platform?
      21
    • All the above, keeping in mind that pushes cost/price, and development time, dramatically up?
      33
    • None of the above, because I don't want this module.
      32


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15 hours ago, Rick50 said:

Time. Back in the 1950's through 70's the BUFF was a very big deal. It was still a leading platform. Feared greatly. The best. Today, not so much: small numbers in service, yes it's still important, but the Bone is spectacular, and the Spirit is the recent past present and the future (as the similar B-21 Raider). How old are these fans of the BUFF now? How old will they be when a module is finished, for sale in 5 years? Will the youngins, the ones in their teens and 20's today, will they even know what a BUFF is? Maybe enough will. 

 

Wise and impartial words. I wasn't even alive in '50s when the Buff was a dangerous bomber. My dad either. I still want every module in it's prime. Mustang from '40s, Buff from '50s, MiG-25 from '60s, F-15 from '70s, MiG-29 or F-16 from '80s.

 

I like to watch Mike tyson's fights in it's prime from late '80 even if i wasn't alive back then, not post-prison '90s overweight Mike surpassed by other boxers and surely not today's sad farce with Roy Jones...

Similarly i want a slick muscle '50s dangerous B-52 when it was a top dog, not modern B-52 "helpless transport plane with cruise missiles" or i want a slick lightweight agile pure F-16 from '80s when it was a top dog, not fat overweight outdated F-16 from 2007 surpassed those times and partially replaced by way more capable and modern F-22, EF2000, Rafale etc.

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  • 1 month later...

 

Nothing much here, just a vid showing a tiny taste of what a BUFF mod or module might be like for the start of a DCS mission:

 

 

I personally did something like this, way back in 2004 (hint hint) flying a freeware addon made by... some gentleman from Japan. It flew quite well, I changed out the weight system and it flew amazingly. 

 

I still say, although I'd buy a full fidellity module, the faster/quicker way would be to do a free mod: full systems detail not possible or expected, no need to model all 4+ workstations, no need to model EVERY piece of ordnance, no need of Boeing permission that probably wouldn't be given anyway, and so on, and so on! I think also that a mod, with a huge effort and wide support of the mod community, could help to create semi-realistic versions of many/all of the variants (within reason of course), from the nuclear early days, to the "Big Belly Arclight" D's,  to the standoff haul trucks of today.

 

I even wonder if... if the mod team could make similar versions in parallel in that other sim... combine the two for a single mission...  Take off in the sim that features the whole world... fly to the theatre of war... switch to the DCS BUFF, evade the SAM's, follow your escort, watch the Weasels Shrike the worst SAM traps, fly low level under radar coverage, drop yer ord, exfil the theatre... and switch to the global sim, figure out rough fuel state remaining, and do your ultra-long RTB. Should be possible, practical even with freeware mods. Is that the ideal ? Probably not, but if done, and someone makes a video showing a full mission like that, it could inspire a payware full fidelity development team to take on such a project as the BUFF ! 

 

 

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  • 5 weeks later...

The B52 does have a fascinatingly varied and changing selection of ordinance. Apparently they’ve even been deploying standard MK 82s again to, carpet bomb terrain as area denial in Afganistan recently, they have been active in Syria also.
 

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/41776/barksdale-b-52-brandishes-its-modern-arsenal-in-new-loadout-photos

 

I can see that some weapons would be classified, but you don’t need to model everything, there’s loads to go at. I can’t see that performance data would be a problem, why would it? Targeting pods, surely they’d have similar capabilities to the ones we already have? 
 

I’d imagine it would be a huge amount of work though, just massive. In service US types with accessible data are getting less though it would seem.

 

As far flying straight and level for long distances, people pay good money for fully featured tubeliners in the bus driver sims. The PMDG 777 is $139 and there are DLC variants. Just sayin…

 

 

 

 

 

 


Edited by Mogster
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If the arming page didn't include one or three pieces of ordnance that the real plane has carried... you'd get a lot of grumbling, low level complaints, on vid and reviews, that could harm sales. Look at how upset people are that nukes won't appear on any other aircraft in DCS other than the Mig-21?  Or the early loadouts available to the Viper guys (lacking JSOW, JDAM, HARM and so on. They are now all included... but there was complaints)

 

I see your point about PMDG products... but that's a totally different market. The users of civil sims, think differently, have different expectations... and I'm not sure that would translate over to the DCS community.

 

Also, PMDG products benefit from a sim that models the whole world. A BUFF in DCS is kinda like trying to drive a dragster inside a warehouse, it can be done, might even be fun, but it's not the same as using it's full potential. We currently are limited to 500x500 km patch. 

 

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I agree with Rick50, the best hope the B-52 has in coming to DCS in the near future is as a community mod. That way development can start right away without the need of a license and it can slowly be improved over time depending on the available data. If that does not sit well with anyone then they can simply start their own 3rd party, acquire the funding, data and licensees and go through all the work required to be approved by ED to become an official DCS module.


Edited by Evoman
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6 hours ago, Rick50 said:

 

If the arming page didn't include one or three pieces of ordnance that the real plane has carried... you'd get a lot of grumbling, low level complaints, on vid and reviews, that could harm sales. Look at how upset people are that nukes won't appear on any other aircraft in DCS other than the Mig-21?  Or the early loadouts available to the Viper guys (lacking JSOW, JDAM, HARM and so on. They are now all included... but there was complaints)

 

I see your point about PMDG products... but that's a totally different market. The users of civil sims, think differently, have different expectations... and I'm not sure that would translate over to the DCS community.

 

Also, PMDG products benefit from a sim that models the whole world. A BUFF in DCS is kinda like trying to drive a dragster inside a warehouse, it can be done, might even be fun, but it's not the same as using it's full potential. We currently are limited to 500x500 km patch. 

 

 

@Rick50 Again... within 500x500km - you can use the B52H to its full potential, and we do so irl. This is a broken record man, I am not sure how else to explain it to you at this point.

Quit spreading false narrative when you have no real world experience with its mission set- and have hope in a B52 module for DCS someday.

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8 hours ago, Rick50 said:

Look at how upset people are that nukes won't appear on any other aircraft in DCS other than the Mig-21?

 

There's a bloody good reason for this. The sudden death of hundreds, possibly thousands of objects all within a mile of the impact point has a tendency to crash servers. Don't get me wrong, it would be interesting to have nukes if they didn't cause these crashes, but they do.

 

8 hours ago, Rick50 said:

Also, PMDG products benefit from a sim that models the whole world. A BUFF in DCS is kinda like trying to drive a dragster inside a warehouse, it can be done, might even be fun, but it's not the same as using it's full potential. We currently are limited to 500x500 km patch. 

 

It very much could be done no problem. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, some B-52s were forward deployed to bases in Florida specifically to hit targets in Cuba, which is merely 90mi (144km) from the southern most tip of Florida, so they very much could take off, climb to altitude, hit their target, and RTB inside of a 500kmx500km map. Funnily enough, the AI B52s already do this in the game, so, again, your argument is invalid.

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2 hours ago, Tank50us said:

It very much could be done no problem. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, some B-52s were forward deployed to bases in Florida specifically to hit targets in Cuba, which is merely 90mi (144km) from the southern most tip of Florida, so they very much could take off, climb to altitude, hit their target, and RTB inside of a 500kmx500km map. Funnily enough, the AI B52s already do this in the game, so, again, your argument is invalid.

 

I believe the disconnect is with @Rick50 usage of the phrase "using it's full potential" -- as in "there are no true long-range missions in DCS's maps" (with the max distance in a 500kmx500km map being some 700 km, so a round trip is some 1400km). I'm not entirely sure what that 'full potential' entails, as even the F-15 has a range of more than 4500 km, the Falcon >4000km, a Flanker clocks in at 3500km and even the Tomcat gets close to 3000km (BUFFy having a range of 14000km, indeed much further). But when most of our planes can cross any map a couple of times over, I guess the range issue isn't that much of a factor.

Since I buy anything ED puts out (and only regretting CA so far), I'd be (virtually 🙂) on board with a B52 as well. Taking a page from Anubis' Herc, I can see that heavies can be fun, even if it's still unclear how the B52's workload would be divided (or what those five guys actually do on a 10 hour flight except wishing for a curtain for their toilet). WRT long-range open water flights: I attempted an Atlantic crossing in a 747 in a different FS that shall not be named here. Took off from JFK, headed for LON. 30 minutes in I decided: digital valium. Long-distance flights over open water aren't as interesting as you might think, and only few people do think it is interesting at all. 

 


Edited by cfrag
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9 hours ago, Tank50us said:

 

There's a bloody good reason for this. The sudden death of hundreds, possibly thousands of objects all within a mile of the impact point has a tendency to crash servers. Don't get me wrong, it would be interesting to have nukes if they didn't cause these crashes, but they do.

 

 

It very much could be done no problem. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, some B-52s were forward deployed to bases in Florida specifically to hit targets in Cuba, which is merely 90mi (144km) from the southern most tip of Florida, so they very much could take off, climb to altitude, hit their target, and RTB inside of a 500kmx500km map. Funnily enough, the AI B52s already do this in the game, so, again, your argument is invalid.

 

Not only that, but within the last 5 years... there have been hundreds of missions that are within that same range in the Middle East.

 

Not being able to simulate a cold war nuke mission, that is only exercised twice a year irl - does not mean DCS cant use the BUFF to its "full potential". People need to get off this horse of thinking the B52 is such a long range nuclear strike bomber these days. The max capability of it is used in a much more local purpose, and that is why the USAF continues to utilize it against terrorism for years to come.


Edited by Wing
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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 9 months later...

While I would love to have a B-52, it is a long range aircraft.  Most of the maps are kind of small for it.  In the Nevada map, a typical mission might be to take off from Nellis, fly around the perimeter of the map 1 to 10 times and drop 66 M117 750-lb bombs on a target (B-52D), then 1 to 10 times more around the map and land back at Nellis.  How do you put bombs on target?  There's no optical bombsight, is there?  I think it was done with a radar bombing system, right?  Not real accurate, but you're going to lay down a line of destruction.  You just have to have that line cross the target area.  Well, there are quite a number of other missions and weapons loads for it, I know.  The other thing is can you "single pilot" it?  It would be awesome for multicrew, but could you get 4 to 7 crew to stay joined to a single aircraft for hours at a time?  Although, it could probably have 1 to 6 "Jesters" aboard to do the duties.  "Tail gunner to navigator, are we there yet?"  It would be cool!!  I just don't expect it to happen, though.  For a heavy aircraft in DCS, none would be better than the B-52, except maybe the B-1B.

I'd pay $300 for a B-52 module that was at least as well done as the F-86F or F-5E.  I just don't see it happening before 2030, if ever.  I'd rather have an F-100D Super Sabre and F-105D Thunderchief before that, preferably within the next few years...I wish.  F-4E (and F-4B or J), A-7E, F-15E and F-8J are for-sure buys for me when they come out. 

For a bomber, I'd be happy with an A-6E Intruder...and it can land on a carrier!  Or a KA-3B Skywarrior...which can also land on a carrier...even an Essex-class carrier!

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A 300$ module has prohibitive and none feasible. A B-52 has very problematic to make, by the lack of info, get a license with the aircraft owners and the missing features as ECM, radar and weapons on the core. The size by the team required to make them has other problem. The map size (no the making of realistic missions) has not a problem by the continuous expansions of size maps.

Enviado desde mi RNE-L21 mediante Tapatalk

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Although I would agree that a full fidellity B-52 is "unlikely"...  the fact that ED made a full-on Longbow gives me a glimmer of hope that maybe "impossible module ideas" might not be so "impossible" after all! 

Also, after looking at all the issues and struggles facing anyone doing a Phantom module... then we suddenly get word that Heatblur is doing one, and possibly  additional variants later on.

 

Still unlikely though.

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13 hours ago, sold496 said:

Hello, I'm not a developer, but I could send them a 3D indoor/outdoor model in share ????

You're late to the party. They already have AI 3D model WIP.

In Dev3.png


Edited by draconus
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Yes I saw that they had progressed, I'm just saying that I can share with them 2 models that might interest them either to improve it or to take some interesting part, but as I tell you I'm not a developer, I bought these models to share them to help or support this project.
 

1 Interior : https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/b-52-cockpit-3d-model/989397

 

2 outside : https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/boeing-b52-stratofortres-3d-model/990180


Edited by sold496
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43 minutes ago, sold496 said:

Yes I saw that they had progressed, I'm just saying that I can share with them 2 models that might interest them either to improve it or to take some interesting part, but as I tell you I'm not a developer, I bought these models to share them to help or support this project.

Unless you apply for a job in ED or team up as a 3rd party you can't help or support the development. These are cool models but a bit low on polys, not up to current DCS standards. ED does not buy models anyway - they make them.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just read this, and I would definitely buy a B52 module.

But in terms of using a survey to answer a point of interest, the questions are usually meant to better understand the targeted demographic, not the person doing the survey.

The question related to map size for example might help better understand how DCS World maps affect module sales, and is not necessarily the opinion of the person making the survey. 


Edited by Callsign112
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Wanting to buy a hypothetical module... is NOT the same as investing real time and money to MAKE a module, with little idea of how it might or might not sell.  Just because 50 people in this thread "REALLY" want to buy it, doesn't mean it'll be a business success.  Only 25 people and myself participated in this thread, while 85 members voted in the poll. Despite it being an apparently crappy poll. That's... not exactly an overwhelming amount of support, if I were contemplating a 3 year investment into such a project. (no, I'm not a dev, just trying to understand what a dev might want to see before diving in)

That said, maybe a better poll, a better hype campaign could generate a much better showing... but I'll leave that for others!

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  • 3 weeks later...
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