Community A-4E-C v2.2 (October 2023)

[JimBo*]

saw the A-4 on the new Eagle Dynamic upcoming 2023 and beyond video... does it mean anything?

[VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants]

It is very, very, very rare that ED includes non-modules in their videos, I tend to overthink, of course.

[Gianky]

Actually, they used the A-4 in other occasions... of course, it would be great if the A-4 would be adopted by ED as the third free module for the basic game. I honestly don't know why they didn't do that, yet!

[WinterH]

29 minutes ago, VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants said:

It is very, very, very rare that ED includes non-modules in their videos, I tend to overthink, of course.

This is like probably the 6th time or so ED and at least once also HB using A-4 in their promotional videos

[VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants]

That's why I say I tend to overthink...or I can be simply -- wrong.

Edited January 4, 2023 by VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants

[Oesau]

Yes we're probably overthinking/wanting/wishing it to be an official module but hey, how can you not when its featured twice in the 2023 AB video

 

[Gianky]

Well, we have some official replies

I like NineLine's reply better, that "as of right now" allows me to keep overthinking things!

Edited January 4, 2023 by Gianky
Corrected a typo

[Mars Exulte]

On 1/4/2023 at 2:06 PM, Gianky said:

Actually, they used the A-4 in other occasions... of course, it would be great if the A-4 would be adopted by ED as the third free module for the basic game. I honestly don't know why they didn't do that, yet!

Besides it being illegal, for the reasons mentioned on the very first page of this thread in the FAQ.

-edit

Actually, this FAQ is not as detailed as the old one. The short version : because the developers don't want to do that.

Edited January 7, 2023 by Mars Exulte

[Gianky]

10 hours ago, Mars Exulte said:

Besides it being illegal, for the reasons mentioned on the very first page of this thread in the FAQ.

-edit

Actually, this FAQ is not as detailed as the old one. The short version : because the developers don't want to do that.

 

Well, the current FAQ goes like this:

«Q: Are there any plans to obtain the Eagle Dynamics SDK, make the module official, or make the module a part of the default DCS install package?

No, the A-4E-C will continue on as a free and open-source resource anyone can download and install to enjoy.»

What I was suggesting would be compatible, at least with the "free" and "anyone can download and installt to enjoy" parts, not sure about the open-source one. IMHO, having the A-4 as the third free (and only FF, combat ready) module of DCS World would be a win win for ED and the developers; maybe they could think about it one more time.

Edited January 7, 2023 by Gianky
Italicized the quotation

[SkateZilla]

14 hours ago, Mars Exulte said:

Besides it being illegal, for the reasons mentioned on the very first page of this thread in the FAQ.

-edit

Actually, this FAQ is not as detailed as the old one. The short version : because the developers don't want to do that.

 

Because if it's commercialized it requires the License from McDonnel Douglas / Boeing, in which case, it would likely not be "free" after that.

[JNelson]

12 minutes ago, SkateZilla said:

Because if it's commercialized it requires the License from McDonnel Douglas / Boeing, in which case, it would likely not be "free" after that.

This is not necessarily true look at the m-2000.

[Mars Exulte]

4 hours ago, JNelson said:

This is not necessarily true look at the m-2000.

 The sun won't necessarily come up tomorrow, but statistically, it probably will. Also, in all this, people are continuing to ignore the developers themselves. You know, the people who own it and developed it.

 Unless they made some grand announcement lately I missed, they specifically said they don't want to because it is expensive, time consuming, legal headache (many people besides just the few currently involved have come and gone, they would ALL have to be contacted, so realistically all this they've done would go in the trash and they'd start from scratch, most mods do NOT make suitable ''professional conversions'' for this very reason), and they don't want to deal with the community demanding crap all the time.

 The first and foremost reason, legality and ''feasability'' aside, is because *they don't want to*. That is literally the single most relevant point, and that people don't get that reallllly drives home the part about them not wanting to deal with the community.

Edited January 8, 2023 by Mars Exulte

[JNelson]

23 hours ago, Mars Exulte said:

 The sun won't necessarily come up tomorrow, but statistically, it probably will. Also, in all this, people are continuing to ignore the developers themselves. You know, the people who own it and developed it.

 Unless they made some grand announcement lately I missed, they specifically said they don't want to because it is expensive, time consuming, legal headache (many people besides just the few currently involved have come and gone, they would ALL have to be contacted, so realistically all this they've done would go in the trash and they'd start from scratch, most mods do NOT make suitable ''professional conversions'' for this very reason), and they don't want to deal with the community demanding crap all the time.

 The first and foremost reason, legality and ''feasability'' aside, is because *they don't want to*. That is literally the single most relevant point, and that people don't get that reallllly drives home the part about them not wanting to deal with the community.

 

I was just pointing out that the licensing is rarely an issue to modules and definitely not the cause for the lack of official A-4. It's definitely less certain than the sun coming up

You are certainly correct a lot of the assets from the mod are unusable due to people's involvement (and licensing of the base assets for the 3d work) a lot of work would have to be redone. The module requires a lot of work regardless. It wouldn't all go in the trash but at the end of the day the A-4 for a lot of people was a hobby project and not every hobby can be turned into a monetised product. I say that as someone who wrote 60,000 lines for the A-4 project.

It's understandable that people want the opposite to be true because they really want their A-4 as an official module. It's hard to fault people for their enthusiasm for the project and wanting it to be official.

Edited January 9, 2023 by JNelson

[Hiob]

By now - I can't but ask myself if ED did a disservice to the A-4E by honoring it into their clips. Both parties made it very clear that has no implications and was just a nod to a wonderful community project and still... here we are pointlessly speculating and discussing .

[Ithronwise]

I love the A-4E-C and I like that it is and will stay an open source community project. Everybody is able to download and install it at will. So, in fact it is an (inofficial) free module already.

The only thing what ED could do (if they are really love this community mod as it seems to be), is to open the DCS SDK for the A-4E-C developers, so they could enhance the capabilites of the mod (e.g. AGM-12 Bullpup or AGM-62 Walleye).

[plusnine]

On 12/31/2022 at 3:31 PM, yufighter said:

 

I think these screenshots can help to solve this problem present in the last version as well. I hope that the creators of mods where visibility is not possible in the entire range from 3 to 140 degrees (A -4, SK 60 and others) will fix the bug and solve the problem.

Sorry for my Google English!

 

Унтитлед 3.ави
Унтитлед 2.ави  

 

 

 

This is a strange an unusual, but pernicious bug. It happens only very rarely and we don't have a good explanation as t why. My best guess is it has something to do with video cards or drivers interacting with DCS and the module's cockpit construction, but since it's so difficult to replicate, we've never been able to identify the source and attempt to address it.

[yufighter]

4 hours ago, plusnine said:

This is a strange an unusual, but pernicious bug. It happens only very rarely and we don't have a good explanation as t why. My best guess is it has something to do with video cards or drivers interacting with DCS and the module's cockpit construction, but since it's so difficult to replicate, we've never been able to identify the source and attempt to address it.

I didn't have this problem with previous versions of the A4. I had the same problem before with some other mods and currently with SK60 and A4. I'll try to find an older version.

[yufighter]

Version 1.4 works normally

2023-01-09 21-25-56.mkv

Edited January 9, 2023 by yufighter

[4eyes]

I have a question about the Radio. I make ogg files for my aircraft radios. Either messages or music. The files work great in the A4-e except for one thing. I can not control the volume. The radio volume button turns OK. However the volume of the sound remains the same.  Does the radio volume work seperately from the general sound volume?  It does in my other aircraft. But not in the A4-e.  I have tried a number of key binds for the Radio Volume Knob.  The knob turns, but the sound volume never changes.

[4eyes]

Hmmmm.........no one home to answer my question?

I sure wish I could get the radio knob volume to work. 

[buur]

vor 40 Minuten schrieb 4eyes:

Hmmmm.........no one home to answer my question?

I sure wish I could get the radio knob volume to work. 

Maybe it is best to ask at the a-4e discord. There are also the developers. https://discord.gg/tQZbkTQ

[SkateZilla]

Your Display Adapter does not meet minimum requirements to run the sim.

On 1/9/2023 at 2:17 PM, yufighter said:

I didn't have this problem with previous versions of the A4. I had the same problem before with some other mods and currently with SK60 and A4. I'll try to find an older version.

 

[yufighter]

Yes, unfortunately I have an older computer model, but still all official models work fine. Only these two mods in the new versions have this specific problem.

Edited January 26, 2023 by yufighter

[SomethingAncient]

On 1/25/2023 at 8:05 PM, yufighter said:

Yes, unfortunately I have an older computer model, but still all official models work fine. Only these two mods in the new versions have this specific problem.

 

To start with, one of the updates came alongside an open beta update, and you need to run at least that version of the open beta for the latest 2.xx A-4e release (and vice-versa, if I'm not mistaken).

Second, it's a miracle you're running this game on an HD6670. The minimum requirement for 2.8 (which is the current stable build now), from the website page, is an "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 / AMD R9 280X". (https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/downloads/world/stable/)

Third, the official models use official source code that isn't available to modders, and that means they don't need to use workarounds. The A-4e, being nearly as good as an official module, probably needs better than minimum specs because it uses some workarounds that aren't as efficient, and that's assuming it also isn't just because a modding team isn't as 'on top' of keeping code perfectly efficient.

Quite frankly, I think DCS ought to already have it's minimum specs at a GTX 780 and Sandybridge (2nd gen) i3 CPU, and drop the AMD FX requirements as AMD doesn't have anything in that performance range (they have way better or worse).

Keep in mind, everyone is begging ED to become multi-threaded, so I suspect, along with the necessary engine overhaul required to do this, the new minimum specs might be something like a 4th gen i3 and a GTX 970 equivalent with at least 4GB VRAM. Just a guess, I don't actually know.

[Beldin]

Hello all, and thanks for this great mod. I thought the A-4 pilots here might enjoy a little 21st century fun with the A-4.

I've got 20 AI A-4 launching from and 10 landing on the Brazilian carrier Sao Paulo.

After arriving very late to the DCS world sim and seeing all the great Naval Aviation Mods out there I thought how cool would it be if all these mods could be used together.

So I've been working on making that happen :). Yeah I'm a little crazy...........  But because of the wonderful mod community here on the site I've made surprising progress.

Updates to follow

 

Edited January 31, 2023 by Beldin
update text