"First Person Shooter" on DCS World

[Silver_Dragon]

And yes, Meanwhile Wags has talked about a "vehicle module" on DCS W. Has other melon open that new year with a Polychop video on DCS of OH-58D incoming module.

That show a OH-58D crew on VR, take a M-4 and shotting to a pickup with live fire from into Kiowa... and was some talks about them.... but suprise, now Miltech5 has show that...

a Hk G-36 3D model and into Bo-105, and confirm on FB, that expect implement the same functionality with the OH-58D... someone need to make ED to working them on the core, and I'm starting to think the AH-64D Apache M4 has not only “attrezzo”.... surprises on a future about a M-16 on UH-1 and AKS-U on Mi-8/-24?

Edited February 9 by Silver_Dragon

[Mike_Romeo]

4 minutes ago, Silver_Dragon said:

Meanwhile Wags has talked about a "vehicle module" on DCS

Not only that, he said that First person shooter is a when not if. Give me a second to grab the time tag.

[Mike_Romeo]

Found it, 5:17

 

[Silver_Dragon]

that move to other 3rd parties will implement the same funtionality on helos and.... ASC C-130J?

[MAXsenna]

that move to other 3rd parties will implement the same funtionality on helos and.... ASC C-130J?

Let's pray!

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[Devil 505]

 

This is a hot topic I wish many would not get so upset about, especially with the C-130, Chinook, and some of the new Helos coming out.  DCS has first and foremost been a military simulation platform putting realism and authenticity at its core, so be it first person shooter, armored module, or maritime assets, I would expect nothing short of the same.  There is absolutely a solid way to sell the first-person modules in my own opinion.  

One of the biggest complaints I hear is the ground scenery not being high fidelity and not being able to enter buildings, small arms ballistics do not exist on top of the obvious soldier mechanics right now, and the FPS turning into a call of duty style game.  Let's break it down for each one of these.

Let's start with the call of duty style gameplay.  I find this to be a mute subject simply for the fact that ED and third-party game developers would not be creating a module that allows for the non-realistic environment the COD franchise has succeeded on.  For the exact same reason we have people fly DCS and not War Thunder. A solid way to sell a first-person experience in DCS would be to create generation/branch/time specific units for as a module pack to include axis/ally in the pack to balance the gameplay and create realistic scenarios. A good example from my own experience in the service would be early era 2000's with Seal units and Taliban/Al-Qaeda terrorist.  During this period, Seals were using very specific weapons during the early war to include MK-18 Mod 0 with Trijicon's mounted with Doctor sites while Al-Qaeda terrorist were the predominate threat before ISIS.  During the early days of the war in Afghanistan the Uniform used in the Middle east for Seals was old school vs what they wear today.  Creating module packs with very specific attention to detail on uniforms, weapons, attachments (down to different suppressors for god sake), gear, and the same for axis units could be huge sellers.  Unit packs could be created for time specific regions such as the maps we have now and in the future.  I would expect nothing short of the level of detail we see in the aircraft to be put into the character models, weapons, and gear.  Body movement would have to be spot on and VR would need to be a must since there are those of us who only play DCS with VR.  This could open up an entirely different market to 3rd party devs and ED.  I could write an entire article just on this topic alone and how to set up a module pack.  Within the pack you should have designated roles as in real life such as comms, sniper, medic, breacher, ect.....

The second topic of concern is the environment or lack thereof for assets and buildings.  I feel there is a solution for this similar to what is out there for the WW2 assets pack.  The difference would be building packs with high detailed interior/exteriors that can be inserted into any map where content creators or campaign developers could create historic missions.  Maybe include some base detailed buildings with the Unit module packs such as the early era Seal/Al-Qaeda pack coming with some detailed FOB building and mud huts.  Other larger buildings such as the Osama Bin-Laden compound and larger structures are included in building asset packs, again time period specific.  This would open the door for historical combat operations with high fidelity such as the Bin Laden raid, patrols in Afghanistan, Special operations missions ect..... DCS would become a virtual playground for content creators who want authenticity and realism over the closest thing we have now which is ARMA.  The ability to recreate what so many have experienced and to do it with the fidelity ED can do would bring a lot of attention to ED and I personally feel, is a great way to remember our fallen brothers and sisters by never forgetting what they did. 

The last concern I will not spend time on because I think it is a moot point.  The current way infantry works on the ground and the ballistics is a given, it's not up to par.  This would obviously be worked over to the same degree they do the aircraft modules and we would receive nothing but the best work ED could push out.

I feel Wags statement is correct, that this is not an if but a when will it happen.  I could not be more pleased when I heard him mention this.  There are so many fine details that need to go into place to make this work, I would not expect anything soon, but the prospect of being able to carry out full combat operations online with my boys overhead while I conduct a raid with the guys would be an insane experience, especially in VR.  I hope the enthusiasm continues to grow for this future feature to DCS World and look forward to the first iteration of the first-person experience, which I believe will be walking from the ready room on the super carrier to our aircraft up on deck.  Once they pull this off, I think it will it the first-person experience in motion.

[draconus]

On 4/24/2024 at 2:14 AM, Devil 505 said:

There are so many fine details that need to go into place to make this work, I would not expect anything soon, but the prospect of being able to carry out full combat operations online with my boys overhead while I conduct a raid with the guys would be an insane experience, especially in VR.  I hope the enthusiasm continues to grow for this future feature to DCS World and look forward to the first iteration of the first-person experience, which I believe will be walking from the ready room on the super carrier to our aircraft up on deck.  Once they pull this off, I think it will it the first-person experience in motion.

Yeah, you dream big but they don't even have a team able to be dedicated to such a task - years of work.

I propose small step ahead instead, just a basic start, basic functions, and then move on to the better and more detailed simulation, soldier, terrain and assets when tech and resources allow.

[Mars Exulte]

Yeah, a vehicle Sim module, very possible. FPS full on shooter? Nah. Not really plausible in any reasonable timeframe, certainly not for anything worth playing. It's a monumental task similar to making a whole separate game from scratch again. Remember how many years it took to get mutlithreading and what have you? Then the scale of ops is a further issue. As limited as Arma is in scale and scope, it still struggles with having all these components working together in a reasonable fashion and timescale. It really only works if you effectively separate these sections of gameplay altogether (like having FPS minI maps/servers) that merely reuse assets from the base game. And if you're going to do that, then what's even the point? Firmly in the realm of ''something that sounds really cool in theory but is not remotely feasbile in a practical sense''.

Edited April 25 by Mars Exulte

[GEIST]

With the latest developments in server tech, especially looking at star citizen which developed a working server meshing technology I think a lot more is possible. Now that it’s proven technology that this works I am sure this can be implemented in dcs as well. 
 

That would mean that you could indeed have a dedicated server focussed on first person/ground mode which will have a high fidelity map loaded… maybe a single city or village in full fidelity. Now all of this would be shared with the DCS main server but only loaded when you enter that servers area, otherwise just important data like unit positions Are shared between the servers.

a plane would probably never enter the high fidelity zone and always see the more low-res version of the city but with all units at the correct position. A helicopter might enter the server to load/unload troops but will only be part of that hi-res city once it’s really close to it. Once it leaves and returns back to base it would join the main server again.

Depending on the map that would be awesome if you could have a few designated hi-res areas that can be shared between the 2 modules and could make for some incredible JTAC coop gameplay.

[cfrag]

1 hour ago, GEIST said:

I am sure this can be implemented in dcs as well.

I don’t think many people doubt that this is possible. Many don’t agree that it would result in a better game.

 

1 hour ago, GEIST said:

first person/ground mode which will have a high fidelity map loaded… maybe a single city or village in full fidelity.

So who creates that full fidelity map? It’s very possible, yes - and very expensive.

1 hour ago, GEIST said:

a plane would probably never enter the high fidelity zone

Then why add such a zone to a flight simulator game if its next to never used in a flight sim? If the planes don’t participate, keep those games apart: let the FPS game do what it does best, and the flight sim stick to its strengths. Otherwise you risk creating a bad FPS game that also hosts a diminished flight sim. Nobody would be happy - a worst from both worlds kind of game. That’s the main concern I have with such a hybrid. Yes, there can be the occasional edge case where this can work. But 99% of the time I think you’d be working against one half of what the game was designed for.

 

 

[diego999]

Look at Elite Dangerous if you want to know what happens if you ram a half cooked first person shooter into a game designated entirely for flying.

Spoiler alert: nothing pretty.

[Devil 505]

1 hour ago, diego999 said:

game designated entirely for flying

DCS World was not designed entirely for flying, hence the title Digital Combat Simulator.  This has been stated since the first days of Black Shark and since then.  I think it is safe to say the team at Eagle Dynamics and their third party devs have a completely different perspective on customer service/satisfaction than the team running Elite Dangerous. 

6 hours ago, cfrag said:

Many don’t agree that it would result in a better game.

I would love to see where you find your stats on the above statement.  Just because there are a handful of trolls that do not want it or think it will be a disaster loosely based off of other failed ventures tells me your you lack confidence in ED to bring the same standards to another area of the sim.  

[cfrag]

4 hours ago, Devil 505 said:

Just because there are a handful of trolls that do not want it or think it will be a disaster loosely based off of other failed ventures tells me your you lack confidence in ED to bring the same standards to another area of the sim. 

I'm not sure that calling those who disagree with you a handful of trolls or lacking in vision/confidence is helpful. There are a number of cold, hard number that when run, make this proposition highly unlikely to succeed. I'm not saying impossible, but in business people don't put their money on a one-in-a-million chance. Running the numbers is what I think will kill this idea financially before it is put into reality - nobody would want to finance it. But let's start at the beginning.

FPS and flights sims are games, and games flourish on two factors: interactivity and content.

Let's start with interactivity: On foot you are fast when you move at 10km/h (I regularly run, and 10 km in 1 hour is not bad at all. Few soldiers will be able to do that for longer and with a heavy load). Helicopters move at some 300km/h (30 times as fast), and fixed wings at some 1200 or faster. That differential in speed is too big to allow any meaningful game interaction. Meaningful being prolonged, over more than half of playtime. In CA (which allows us to mix wheels and wings), a player-controlled JTAC has about 5 Minutes of interaction with another player - over an entire hour of game time. Writing missions is kind of my thing in DCS. Mayhaps I'm lacking vision and inventiveness, but it's incredibly hard to write a good mission that canbring together helicopters and fixed wings for exactly the same reason: too big of a speed differential. Mixing boots and wings widens that gap - the players may as well play different games altogether: those on foot play their game, and those where the air is rare theirs. That is going to be an incredibly difficult obstacle to overcome. Not impossible, just very difficult.

The bigger problem, however, is on the content side. One exceedingly expensive (and equally important) piece to produce in the content arena are maps. That is why we only have a handful of those in DCS, and why there is so long in-between them. It's not the geo mesh itself - that we can pull off any geo server in a matter of seconds. Fill it with some sat textures, and we can be done in a day. That map, however, is devoid of any meaningful context. Now comes the expensive part: filling the map. And this is what would, in my eyes, make the entire proposition financially unattractive:

Let us - for simplicity - assume that an FPS map, e.g. Arma, and DCS cost the same to fill with content. A FPS 'hi-res' map is often less than 400sq km in size, or 20km per side. That's roughly the greater area of Dubai's International airport on the SOH (Persian Gulf) map. In other words: For each hi-res 'spot' on your map (cities, historical sites) you'd spend the entire budged of a SOH-sized map for developing that one hi res spot's content. And these spots aren't portable. If you fully develop a hi-res Dubai (70x20 = 1400 sq km, more than three times the size of our assumed FPS maps, i.e. three times the cost to fill with content) there is only one place to put it: in the location of Dubai, on the SOH map. A fantastic map like Syria or Sinai each have at least 3 points of interest that need be developed into hi-res for meaningful FPS play (in Sinai, off the top of my head alone: Cairo, Alexandria, Gaza, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem). And each one of them comes with the same price tag as the entire map itself. Just so that you can walk through it on foot - because fixed wings (DCS's financial mainstay) don't enter it - at least not for longer than a few minutes.

That is why financially, putting this into reality is so unlikely: the game play styles don't mix well, and they do not complement each other. Don't get me wrong: as a rotor head, I'd love to see high-res definitions of the entire map. Realistically, though, I'm aware of the prohibitive financial cost that it takes to implement. Maybe, and let's simply take it as a given that the game engine can perform well enough on such a large-scale detail, with greater advances in AI we can some day have those maps. Even then, the disparity in velocities at which individuals (foot vs wings) move, will prohibit an enduring, cohesive play style that mixes boots and wings. 

I don't think it's a lack of vision on my side. I'm taking a hard look indeed at the challenges. I want higher density quality. I want the airfields teeming with life instead of the barren wastelands that they are now. I want cities and villages to be highly detailed, with insurgents crawling inside houses and sniping from roofs so that I have to maneuver my helicopter carefully. And I still know that as a helicopter pilot I will not venture forth on foot to clear out that village Rambo-style myself. Boots and Wings don't match well, and yet I still want hi-res. Problem is: to fill Caucasus (280'000 sq km) with an Arma-level of detail (400 sq km), that requires the work of 700 Caucasus maps. That's what any business analyst calls a non-starter: too expensive. If we can drive cost down with AI, sure. Not today, though.

And the bottom line: if your FPS gameplay experience in DCS is worse than in Arma, and as FPS player you don't interact with wings anyway, you might as well play Arma and have a better time. I say that's not so much a lack of vision as it is taking a hard, good look at the realities of the game business. A DCS FPS game only has a chance if the experience is at least as good as the FPS competition. Everything else means throwing away your investments.

Edited April 30 by cfrag

[draconus]

OK, let's be realistic here. What we already have more or less working in DCS:

• parachute flight
• controllable ejected pilot (full 1st person view)
• controllable manpad soldier
• ability to point and shoot small arms, guns and missiles with manpad or from the vehicles (shooter eyepiece view)
• binoculars and night vision goggles (1st person view)
• a few types of animated (I know ) infantry and terrorists models
• drivable vehicles

Now just connect the dots and we don't have to create multi-million business for it to happen.

Scale problem? New maps are pretty good and detailed on the ground. Let's forget about the buildings for now since we can't get into them but there's no one hiding there either. Maybe it could be added in DCS later as it's still needed for good helicopter and CA action anyway. It doesn't make sense to make some higher fidelity areas that aircraft would enter/exit. If you're hiding behind the bush as a solder, the pilot has to see that bush too on his TPOD from 5 miles or you'd be literally a sitting duck there.

Timeline problem? You don't have to forcefully connect them all together. Don't forget we're in a simulator and can change the place and time of simulation. That means you can be a pilot, then a boot and then a tank commander a moment later without breaking the physics of simulated world, because we're not one and the same person going Rambo style, the pilot stays in aircraft and the AI pilot controls it after you leave, while you take control over one of AI soldiers, just like that.

Imagine the scenario: startup your Chinook, embark AI troops, drop'em, you then become one of them and continue FPS mission. Call for evac, get to extraction point, embark the transport. Change back to pilot and RTB to end the mission as a pilot. Idea isn't new and have been done already in some games - we just put the focus and fidelity on the flying part with added lower fidelity fun part on the ground Isn't it how CA works right now? We don't ask to compete with AAA FPS here.

Then this wish connects with other wishes for a downed pilot that can survive on the water (under some conditions) and can be CSARed out.

[cfrag]

46 minutes ago, draconus said:

Imagine the scenario: startup your Chinook, embark AI troops, drop'em, you then become one of them and continue FPS mission. Call for evac, get to extraction point, embark the transport. Change back to pilot and RTB to end the mission as a pilot.

I guess that's more or less also the scenario that I would like to see. It'll make the realism-obsessed rivet-counter's heads explode (because it's "not realistic") but I don't give a damn. I want fun, and DCS delivers in spades.

Although... the high fidelity of our cockpit does contrast badly with the sparse scenery outside. Land your Helo in Kutaisi city proper and you know what I mean. Stepping into that city on foot compares unfavorably even with venerable Unreal Tournament. 

46 minutes ago, draconus said:

We don't ask to compete with AAA FPS here.

And I think that is where you are dead wrong. While some of us (me included) won't, the broad perception of the world at large will. And they'll point and laugh, and this can likely ruin DCS's perception in the gaming world. Instead of being perceived as a first-rate military flight sim, it's reputation is going to be eclipsed by the majority reviews that (unfortunately correctly) peg it as being a 'half-assed, low-fidelity, bland and boring FPS'. Why? Because FPS games have a much wider reach (larger player base) than study flight sims (I assert at least 10 to 1, likely >20:1). As a freely downloadable game I can already see the literally hundreds of 'thumbs down' reviews from FPS heads versus the lone 'thumbs up' from a pilot. No, if you compete in a space, you better compete all the way -- else your reputation suffers. Want it or not, if DCS enters the FPS arena, it will be compared to that gaming space's competition, and the comparison will be harsh unless we get a AAA FPS module/world. So if DCS goes FPS, it better do it right. I'm looking at the unholy mess that CA is today regard that as a cautionary tale: DCS is a terrible FPS, and really terrible driving game. It's the best flight sim there is right now, MS go eat your heart out. And that's how I expect DCS to compete in the FPS arena as well. Be best or get out. Because everyone will compare DCS FPS to the likes of COD, ARMA and, yeah, Doom Eternal. The market is harsh, and player's reviews harsher.

Edited April 30 by cfrag

[Silver_Dragon]

2 hours ago, cfrag said:

I guess that's more or less also the scenario that I would like to see. It'll make the realism-obsessed rivet-counter's heads explode (because it's "not realistic") but I don't give a damn. I want fun, and DCS delivers in spades.

Although... the high fidelity of our cockpit does contrast badly with the sparse scenery outside. Land your Helo in Kutaisi city proper and you know what I mean. Stepping into that city on foot compares unfavorably even with venerable Unreal Tournament. 

And I think that is where you are dead wrong. While some of us (me included) won't, the broad perception of the world at large will. And they'll point and laugh, and this can likely ruin DCS's perception in the gaming world. Instead of being perceived as a first-rate military flight sim, it's reputation is going to be eclipsed by the majority reviews that (unfortunately correctly) peg it as being a 'half-assed, low-fidelity, bland and boring FPS'. Why? Because FPS games have a much wider reach (larger player base) than study flight sims (I assert at least 10 to 1, likely >20:1). As a freely downloadable game I can already see the literally hundreds of 'thumbs down' reviews from FPS heads versus the lone 'thumbs up' from a pilot. No, if you compete in a space, you better compete all the way -- else your reputation suffers. Want it or not, if DCS enters the FPS arena, it will be compared to that gaming space's competition, and the comparison will be harsh unless we get a AAA FPS module/world. So if DCS goes FPS, it better do it right. I'm looking at the unholy mess that CA is today regard that as a cautionary tale: DCS is a terrible FPS, and really terrible driving game. It's the best flight sim there is right now, MS go eat your heart out. And that's how I expect DCS to compete in the FPS arena as well. Be best or get out. Because everyone will compare DCS FPS to the likes of COD, ARMA and, yeah, Doom Eternal. The market is harsh, and player's reviews harsher.

ED CA never was planned as a FPS (or a SB killer)... was only a "UK Army JTAC trainer" converted to DCS... put comparations with AAA, COD, ARMA (Reforger has a pain) etc has a none sense. The actual "FPS" need rebuild from scratch, put aside from CA and reworking the core features, the TDK and making FPS features by a exclusive team over 5-10 years as the "Vulkan / Whole World" technology. The "first-rate military flight sim" will maintain without problems meanwhile ED continue expand the core, and the "market" has none interest on a ED FPS without has none official.

Edited April 30 by Silver_Dragon

[draconus]

1 hour ago, cfrag said:

I guess that's more or less also the scenario that I would like to see. It'll make the realism-obsessed rivet-counter's heads explode (because it's "not realistic") but I don't give a damn.

What is not realistic?

1 hour ago, cfrag said:

Land your Helo in Kutaisi city proper and you know what I mean.

That's why I mentioned our newest maps - not our old, basic, free map from 2008, refreshed slightly 6 years ago.

1 hour ago, cfrag said:

this can likely ruin DCS's perception in the gaming world.

Now reputation is a problem? Look, you can play tanks in CA since 2012 and DCS didn't suffer nor been flooded by tank commanders from other cool games, which have massively bigger community and player base.

[Exorcet]

2 hours ago, cfrag said:

I'm looking at the unholy mess that CA is today regard that as a cautionary tale: DCS is a terrible FPS, and really terrible driving game. It's the best flight sim there is right now, MS go eat your heart out. And that's how I expect DCS to compete in the FPS arena as well. Be best or get out. Because everyone will compare DCS FPS to the likes of COD, ARMA and, yeah, Doom Eternal. The market is harsh, and player's reviews harsher.

While CA is a mess, I don't think I've seen anyone outside of DCS really complain about it. It doesn't compete with bigger games because it didn't manage to attract a wide audience. DCS ground troops would probably be the same and just compete within the simulator niche.

DCS FPS will have to make some compromises, but that is fine. It doesn't have to be the pinnacle of FPS games. It only needs to provide us with some way to allow player controlled troops to interact with aircraft. Even just adding controllable infantry to CA is a good start. There are some issues of scale when mixing aircraft and ground combat, but it's not a massive problem. I've made missions where I interact with ground forces for more than 5 minutes, and even if one pilot can only stay around for 5 minutes you can have more than one pilot available to extend the interaction time between air and ground.

[cfrag]

1 hour ago, draconus said:

What is not realistic?

I mean the concept of first flying a Chopper (e.g. Gazelle) over to a city, landing it, and the pilot then clearing the entire block with their service firearm. Fun, but unrealistic.

1 hour ago, draconus said:

That's why I mentioned our newest maps - not our old, basic, free map from 2008, refreshed slightly 6 years ago.

Indeed, and I'm looking forward to the next Sinai update (I find Sinai drop-dead beautiful). But those maps cost money. People who try out DCS try the free stuff that comes with it. And when they then FPS in free DCS, they'll see whatever is offered for free. My guess is that'll be some form of Caucasus or Marianas.

1 hour ago, draconus said:

Now reputation is a problem? Look, you can play tanks in CA since 2012 and DCS didn't suffer nor been flooded by tank commanders from other cool games, which have massively bigger community and player base.

Because, thankfully, that CA abomination costs some 40 USD (where I live), a big disincentive for players who want to check DCS out for free. CA is USD 10 more expensive than, say, "Gunner, HEAT, PC", so the freebie seekers don't get CA, and neither do the more serious tank battlers. CA's reputation on steam is 'mostly negative', deservedly. And it only hasn't tainted DCS much because DCS isn't advertised as a tank battler. If free DCS sports an FPS mode, it will be immediately billed by the masses as a "free, DLC-subsidized FPS like Destiny 2". And then we can watch the ratings plummet if the FPS side isn't up to snuff. If, on the other hand, FPS becomes a paid DLC, I'll buy it anyway (because I'm a slow learner, I guess), and the ratings remain intact even if it's as bad as CA -- because the freebie crowd will still see DCS as a DLC-subsidized study flight sim not as an FPS, simply because the FPS part isn't free. Perception is reality - unfortunately. For CA, that is its saving grace (even though I still think that ED should pull CA for low quality reasons)

Edited April 30 by cfrag

[Exorcet]

4 minutes ago, cfrag said:

I mean the concept of first flying a Chopper (e.g. Gazelle) over to a city, landing it, and the pilot then clearing the entire block with their service firearm. Fun, but unrealistic.

The example was about dropping off the troops and swapping into one of them, not having the pilot get out of the helicopter.

[cfrag]

15 minutes ago, Exorcet said:

The example was about dropping off the troops and swapping into one of them, not having the pilot get out of the helicopter.

Fair enough - I have no issues with either as long as it's fun.

[draconus]

1 hour ago, cfrag said:

And when they then FPS in free DCS, they'll see whatever is offered for free. My guess is that'll be some form of Caucasus or Marianas.

I don't think it's a good idea to make it free. It should be rather part of CA or some new DLC - this makes sense from both business and gameplay reasons. We can't disallow walking down the Caucasus streets and meadows but Marianas is ready enough:

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/upload/iblock/118/dcs-world-marianas-island-housing.jpg

 

Edited April 30 by draconus

[Silver_Dragon]

2 hours ago, cfrag said:

And when they then FPS in free DCS, they'll see whatever is offered for free.

The necesary working from build a FPS system (No the Pseudo CA System), has outside from any Free content. You need integrate on the core some new technology and making that realistic will take years. That is not export the Unreal engine / BIS engine on DCS. Has building the constructiion blocks, and as the SC, has no free build them.

Edited April 30 by Silver_Dragon

[NineLine]

CA was never intended to be a FPS although it might have rough elements of that in it. As well, I more than anyone would love to see CA get a fresh coat of paint including but not limited to new features and aspects to improve on the ground and command aspects. CA accomplished the needs it was added for at the time, comparing it to games like "Gunner, HEAT, PC" is not valid as CA was never intended to be a pure tank driver game. If you were honest you could say there are some things you can do in CA that you can't in those games. CA was built for needs at the time of DCS, giving players the ability to directly impact the battlefield while players flew missions. 

CA is currently 39.99 USD, on sale it's generally 19.99 USD. For all it does and adds to missions if used within the constraints of the intent of the product I feel is a pretty decent value. Pulling it because it needs updates seems a bit extreme, but we do know and understand that it needs updates. 

If we are talking about FPS aspects of DCS beyond what we have now then you are talking about something built upon or beyond what CA is. DCS as a whole will need to be made to complement a FPS environment or people will have to understand that any FPS additions are to add to the all-around impact and feeling of DCS as a Land/Sea/Air game. In the end, DCS was a flight sim first and everything is built upon that, this is why things like the Supercarrier take more time as we need to add and build up the core to handle these new and bigger features. 

[cfrag]

2 hours ago, NineLine said:

For all it does and adds to missions if used within the constraints of the intent of the product I feel is a pretty decent value. Pulling it because it needs updates seems a bit extreme, but we do know and understand that it needs updates. 

Thank you @NineLine for that vote of confidence for CA. I don't share your opinion when it comes to CA being of decent value in its current form, but opinions differ. When compared to all your other products (except perhaps the Hawk, that I also own), it IMHO tarnishes your (ED's) stellar reputation: It (CA) doesn't work in VR - at all. DCS is THE VR killer app, there are no better apps in VR space than DCS. And CA breaks it. Then, entering a CA unit needlessly breaks DCS's entire UI metaphor. That makes CA look really low-quality to me.
DCS is famous for exact physics modelling. I can take a Leo II Tank in CA, drive it downhill, and have it exceed 240 km/h. Then, hurtling at ridiculous speeds that could make sports cars green with envy,  that Leo can be stopped dead in it's track by a slender 3 inch thick birch tree. And there's a lot more that should never have passed that module's release QA. IMHO, CA does not pass my DCS quality expectations, and it hasn't for several years.

I'm not here to complain - and I also think that very few people would earnestly claim that CA is a decent value in its present form. I'm looking forward to the day that it does, though, and you speaking for CA here makes me hopeful that that day may come.