Viggen 2.8: any announcement?

[Spirale]

As always, full information about the F14 but the viggen? What is scheduled? It would be kind and pleasant to know " something" about the Viggen in the future DCS 2.8 update.

We already know that "cosmetics" will come but what about damage model? The Viggen till able to fly without wings? I mean real improvements.

I really have the bad feeling the Viggen is set aside for the benefit of the F14....I hope i am wrong...

Thx for your reply HB

Edited October 26, 2022 by Spirale

[Snappy]

Yes I agree,

while I appreciate the huge amount of work going into improving the Tomcat, these lopsided updates have  become an annoying trend. I lost count of the many HB announcements along the lines of  „next update will see chunky Viggen changelog, all hands are on deck to push the Viggen across the finish line and deliver announced features, etc etc.“, only to get a another update with a big Tomcat changelog and nothing or next to nothing in the Viggen department.

Latest example, Cobra‘s post from 21st sept:

“…so we focused on shipping a larger update for the F-14 and Viggen in the October patch.“

I will wait until the actual update changelog but I remain quite pessimistic,that this „larger“ Viggen update will not make it into this last October 2.8 patch..

Though it may not reflect the actual internal situation at Heatblur, from a Viggen customer perspective it often feels like the Viggen is the black sheep, that always has to take the backseat at family events.

Regards,

 Snappy 

Also pretty sure sooner or later either Cobra or IronMike are going to chime in and assure us, that the Viggen is not on the backburner and that HB is very much committed to it and that it will receive significant work in the future, but at some point this just rings hollow in the face of patch after patch showing something else.

 

 

Edited October 26, 2022 by Snappy

[Cobra847]

Sorry for the late notice on this- 2.8 has been a very difficult patch cycle and was a huge iceberg in terms of making both modules compatible. We unfortunately had to split the two patches apart because of this and decided to prioritize the F-14. We endeavour instead to ship Viggen additions and changes in the follow-up patch in November, while tomorrow's update simply updates the Viggen to be compatible with 2.8. This is disappointing, but we're not superhuman and can only do so much with these unforeseen roadblocks. 

Shipping only a maintenance update for the initial release of 2.8 is rather bitter for us as well, but we simply had to focus away the game breaking issues. For that I do apologize. We are pressing and trying as hard as we can on all fronts and trying to navigate this year as best as we can considering circumstances.

There are some major issues, e.g. with damage modeling that are impacting gameplay and we are aware of how annoying they are and how they impact the grander simulation, and I am trying to puzzle together our planning to ensure the Viggen is not the runt of the litter.

 

Edited October 27, 2022 by Cobra847

[Spirale]

Thx for your reply Cobra. That's being done you said " we are not superhuman"....True BUT you explain to us that you cannot take car of the two module à at the same time.  while I also understand this, i know you are yourselves your own bosses and you are responsible about your decision. You are not superhuman but you choose to always prioritise the F14. That's the problem...

Since not monthes but years now we, Viggen fans, pilots, enthousiasts, are waiting for a "balance of care" between  Viggen and F14: nope only one side is treated....The Viggen receive crumbs...Look at updates history: hundreds of lines for the Tomcat, crumbs for the Viggen...

So yes your are not superhuman but responsibto to not alternate the improvments .

On my side , IRL i am not demanding but this time i am fed to always read the same things from HB about the Viggen and i fully agree with Snappy: the Viggen is without a doubt a black sheep...No wonders why the Viggen remains a non popular module...

Regards

ps: and who cares bout dynamic numbers on tail really? FM@high speed, flying without wings, drag indexes and so on are way more criticals..

Edited October 27, 2022 by Spirale

[Snappy]

5 hours ago, Cobra847 said:

Sorry for the late notice on this- 2.8 has been a very difficult patch cycle and was a huge iceberg in terms of making both modules compatible. We unfortunately had to split the two patches apart because of this and decided to prioritize the F-14. We endeavour instead to ship Viggen additions and changes in the follow-up patch in November, while tomorrow's update simply updates the Viggen to be compatible with 2.8. This is disappointing, but we're not superhuman and can only do so much with these unforeseen roadblocks. 

Shipping only a maintenance update for the initial release of 2.8 is rather bitter for us as well, but we simply had to focus away the game breaking issues. For that I do apologize. We are pressing and trying as hard as we can on all fronts and trying to navigate this year as best as we can considering circumstances.

There are some major issues, e.g. with damage modeling that are impacting gameplay and we are aware of how annoying they are and how they impact the grander simulation, and I am trying to puzzle together our planning to ensure the Viggen is not the runt of the litter.

 

 

Hi Cobra,

it’s a nice move (serious here, no irony!) of you to chime in here and explain. And while you and your team do have my sympathies for all the difficult additional issues you are facing this year, I can still only echo @Spirale‘s point:

It is  your decision what you prioritise and time and time again the Viggen gets the short straw. I very much get that you run a business and that other considerations influence your decisions.

But still I can only repeat it and I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels that way, as a Viggen customer, this is a really disappointing trend and it’s been that way quite a while. It’s not like this happened only once or twice with the lopsided updates /development (from what is available to us customers, not your internal builds). It was many many update cycles. That plus the (by now ) very stale assurances from you and/or IronMike that this will change and that the Viggen will receive more development soonish leave a bad taste for a customer.

Because, I’m really sorry to say, by this point I don’t believe them anymore and you have lost my trust in that regard.
I do believe you have the intention and want to improve the Viggen, but in my personal opinion you would need a serious ,conscious and lasting change in priority and task assignment if you really want to stop disappointing Viggen customers and get this done . 

Of course you could also keep up with the current coffee drip drip strategy and the Viggen will only be done in a decade or two.
But in this case I would advise against putting out further Viggen development assurances/update announcements, because it’s just making things much much worse from a trustworthiness perspective , even if I’m sure they’re not meant that way.

But it’s your train set in the end.

All that being said, I do you hope you personally  and the Heatblur team is safe and ok because I know you and them were facing various different difficulties  ! My best wishes for you all .

regards, Snappy 

Edited October 27, 2022 by Snappy

[Spirale]

Another little detail that demonstrate what was said above:

In the F14 topic, Iron Mike is greatly present, nearly every days ( and thx to him to be so kind, it's very pleasant to read a dev every day for a consumer). This behavior of a developer greatly contributes to emphasis the life of the F14 forum, attract people in it, make their interest grow and motivates them maybe buy this module...

Meanwhile in the Viggen forum.....not a single post ( except mine today) in the last 15 days...I am not saying that no dev has come to expose the progress of the Viggen in recent month, i want to highlight a flagrant imbalance which leads to the desertification of this " Viggen forum" and probably demotivate new potential pilots to purchase this module...

Make your own conclusions...

Edited October 27, 2022 by Spirale

[Cobra847]

Fair and valid critique and much appreciated from you both! Apologies for the short message but currently unable to reply at length.

[amalahama]

It was mentioned some time ago a potential big FM upgrade, to polish the strange behaviour that the Viggen has, specially in corner cases (Max speed at altitude for example).

Is this overhaul still planned? 

Thanks

[Otulf]

Hello!

Thank you for the reply in this forum Cobra!

It is appreciated!

Though I  agree with both Spirale and Snappy.

Again and again, updates of the Viggen module have had to stand back... 

I bought the Viggen module upon release (several years ago) and It is by FAR my favourite module.

I am looking forward to the patch in November.

 

Do take care!

Best regards:

Otulf

[IronMike]

On 10/27/2022 at 10:59 AM, Spirale said:

Another little detail that demonstrate what was said above:

In the F14 topic, Iron Mike is greatly present, nearly every days ( and thx to him to be so kind, it's very pleasant to read a dev every day for a consumer). This behavior of a developer greatly contributes to emphasis the life of the F14 forum, attract people in it, make their interest grow and motivates them maybe buy this module...

Meanwhile in the Viggen forum.....not a single post ( except mine today) in the last 15 days...I am not saying that no dev has come to expose the progress of the Viggen in recent month, i want to highlight a flagrant imbalance which leads to the desertification of this " Viggen forum" and probably demotivate new potential pilots to purchase this module...

Make your own conclusions...

 

Thank you for the feedback, and my apologies for being less present on the Viggen forums, it certainly is not for wanting to be. It is however also very dependent on updates, and the F14 received a major update which requires my presence much more currently. Likely, as you know, I am also present around Viggen patches or major updates. Same as I am not answering daily on Tomcat issues when there is no update/patch/new feature around (though we generally of course still check on all our subforums daily, even if we do not reply to every post).

Naturally newer modules receive sometimes more updates, simply because we are further along with the Viggen than we are with the F-14 for example - it simply is much more complete (even with a many items remaining until we call it fully released of course). This does not mean we have abandoned an older module, or do not have the remaining and still outstanding issues with the Viggen on our screen or even care less about it, but sometimes we need to prioritize, as we cannot divide ourselves in half. Just like we prioritized for the Tomcat now, next month we will prioritize the Viggen, and the Tomcat will receive less attention. But as time goes, newer modules will always require by default more attention than older modules, which does not mean that we cherish them more, or care less about older modules. It is the natural course of things and ideally, bug fixes should become less and less over time the older a module gets, which also means it will see less updates in time (and that is again not to say that we are unaware of the many remaining issues, we are). At the same time the progress made in newer modules, benefits older modules in return, as we can over time continue to improve them and modernize at least parts of the technologies that are underlying the various features.

I asked a while ago to be so kind to ping me, if something arises, and for a while this worked and I received pings and I hope always answered, but lately I have not seen any. We also specifically brought several outstanding members of the Viggen community on the test team, which help us even more to keep a focus on the Viggen.

Lastly please understand that not having a changelog devoted to bug fixing, does not mean that no work has been done on updating the Viggen. It has. 2.8 required substantial input from our side to make everything work, but that just does not fit into a changelog, it is coding related, not feature or bug related. It also does not mean that our testers paid no attention to it (they did), or we are not discussing Viggen issues on an ongoing (almost daily) basis (we do).

I've also put up a feedback thread for this patch, as with such major version progressions there can always be new issues, although we luckily did not find anything during testing which we were not able to fix prior to the update.

Thank you all for your very kind patience.

Edited October 28, 2022 by IronMike