waiting for resolution RAZBAM Situation Post Archive (will be deleted)

[Dallenbach]

Sunday morning activity

Drinking a pot of coffee Eating cookies

Reading Yellow Press Razbam

Laughing my ass off. 

Thanks for this entertainment.

How can you waste your life with something like that? 

[SkateZilla]

22 hours ago, Aapje said:

Absurd logic. How does the way that Ron deals with his employees legitimize ED's decision to not pay Razbam? Are you under the impression that ED is a subcontractor of Razbam? Because otherwise this makes zero sense.

Also, the reason why Ron doesn't have the money to pay his employees is because ED stopped paying, so you are mixing up cause and effect.

Besides, one of the consistent things we see in the leaked stuff is ED not paying their subcontractors on time for no apparent reason. So by your logic, a court or tribunal would side with Razbam, but of course your logic is illogical and not based on fact (since they is no court or tribunal that we know of).

I own a studio / business.

I am responsible for paying my employees and any sub-contractors I hire for a project.
More often than not, they are paid before I ever see the payment for the final project.

It's the equiv of me going after a production studio because I couldn't pay the artists that I subcontracted or hired.

Their contracts are for my company to pay them, not the studio I accepted the contract from.

This is why companies are required to have Insurance, company licenses, etc etc.

I know fellow owners that took out loans to pay employees on time, and then paid them off once their contractual payment arrived.

The only "Hickup" would be, if their contracts are stipulated to be a % of sales, which requires sales numbers to be shared to calculate payments to sub contracters, which have not been allegedly shared.

ED Paying RB, does not and should not in any business structure, stipulate whether or not RB pays sub contractors.

[gbk]

9 hours ago, Hammer1-1 said:

...Having bought stuff from Razbams stuff from other platforms, I can tell you firsthand some of the trash he's done ...

100% Correct my friend.. This is the basis of the frustration for many of us who had paid Razbam well before they jumped into the DCS.  Although we were burned before with their products' abandoning practices ("stepped away from..." they call it in their website),  we were forgiving enough and trusted that this time around they will be devoted to what they were selling . ED responsibility was that having  the Hawk's experience, and since they are a corporate, they must have investigated Razbams past and their previous "stepp aways" and then they must have had suitably formulated their contracts,before having us, the customers risk our money.   

[gbk]

11 hours ago, Aapje said:

If what was the case? You have proven absolutely nothing, other than that you will believe ED without any actual evidence.

The case is that many of us here paid for products that will soon become obsolete without ED's choice.  Money for the majority of these products were paid well before this issue started, so the "non payments allegation" doesn't seem to apply for these. Therefore, if you're also a paying customer, instead of start playing with the words and try to create sympathy for one of the parties , please consider Razbam CEO's latest abandonment statement and then tell us who is wrong and who is right.

[cfrag]

14 hours ago, Horns said:

t’s difficult to argue one has to buy EA modules in order to play DCS given the excellent selection of non-EA (and imminently so) modules available.

That is an interesting and IMHO intensely valid point: ED's current situation seemingly burns bridges left and right: at one hand we can no longer trust that they can control their subcontractors (I've now been burned multiple times: Hawk, Mudhen, Harrier, Farmer, Mirage, Falklands), and on the other hand their EA program can't be trusted (almost a decade in, my YAK still has no damage model, it likely never will have one). So, if we disregard all non-ED modules (for risk of losing support over night), and disregard all EA modules, what is left as of today, July 2025?

• (maybe next week: ) F-16, a six years old module
• FA-18 , a seven years old module
• A-10C, a 14 (!!!) years old module
• F-5E, 9 years old
• F-86, 11 years old 
• L-39, 10 years old
• Mig-15bis, 10 years old
• Flaming Cliffs, 13 years old

And on the rotor-wing side we have 

• Black Shark, 17 years old (old enough to drink where I live)
• Mi-8 Hip, 12 years old
• UH-1 Huey, 12 years old

Maps:

• Nevada, 8 years old
• Persia, 7 years old

(plus a couple of warbirds that I own but never fly. And I did not mention CA out of kindness.)

So we can get a couple of badly aging modules (the Hip and Huey are great models, they desperately need updates, the Huey still can't be used in multicrew correctly).

The reason that the older modules are in such a crappy condition? Probably financial - since there is no steady revenue stream to support older modules, they languish in 'maintenance hell' and get little to no development, just enough to keep them afloat. But that's a different story. Without EA and their contractor modules, DCS IMHO is not really interesting, with a hand full of aging (9+ years on average), barely maintained modules on offer, and a core that seemingly approaches obsolescence due to bugs and age. The ever-tightening one-off sales structure that heavily relies on EA is likely to steepen the curve, making it worse. Let's hope that ED find a way to mitigate the RZ disaster and can avoid a repetition of the Hawk and keep customers buying modules from their contractors.

Edited Sunday at 09:19 AM by cfrag

[MAXsenna]

24 minutes ago, cfrag said:

Falklands

Unless I misunderstand your perception of being burned with the South-Atlantic map. I'll repeat in this thread as many others before me. The SA map was never made by Razbam. Just published through them, and is still receiving updates.

And let's not forget, that "same" team is making the Kola map, but now under ORBX, one has to wonder why, right?  

[cfrag]

1 minute ago, MAXsenna said:

Unless I misunderstand your perception of being burned with the South-Atlantic map. I'll repeat in this thread as many others before me. The SA map was never made by Razbam. Just published through them, and is still receiving updates.

That is good to know - thank you for the update. Then again, the treatment of Falklands wasn't my central worry; I was more focused on what remains of DCS without EA and third party modules.

[Horns]

56 minutes ago, cfrag said:

That is an interesting and IMHO intensely valid point: ED's current situation seemingly burns bridges left and right: at one hand we can no longer trust that they can control their subcontractors (I've now been burned multiple times: Hawk, Mudhen, Harrier, Farmer, Mirage, Falklands), and on the other hand their EA program can't be trusted (almost a decade in, my YAK still has no damage model, it likely never will have one). So, if we disregard all non-ED modules (for risk of losing support over night), and disregard all EA modules, what is left as of today, July 2025?

• (maybe next week: ) F-16, a six years old module
• FA-18 , a seven years old module
• A-10C, a 14 (!!!) years old module
• F-5E, 9 years old
• F-86, 11 years old 
• L-39, 10 years old
• Mig-15bis, 10 years old
• Flaming Cliffs, 13 years old

And on the rotor-wing side we have 

• Black Shark, 17 years old (old enough to drink where I live)
• Mi-8 Hip, 12 years old
• UH-1 Huey, 12 years old

Maps:

• Nevada, 8 years old
• Persia, 7 years old

(plus a couple of warbirds that I own but never fly. And I did not mention CA out of kindness.)

So we can get a couple of badly aging modules (the Hip and Huey are great models, they desperately need updates, the Huey still can't be used in multicrew correctly).

The reason that the older modules are in such a crappy condition? Probably financial - since there is no steady revenue stream to support older modules, they languish in 'maintenance hell' and get little to no development, just enough to keep them afloat. But that's a different story. Without EA and their contractor modules, DCS IMHO is not really interesting, with a hand full of aging (9+ years on average), barely maintained modules on offer, and a core that seemingly approaches obsolescence due to bugs and age. The ever-tightening one-off sales structure that heavily relies on EA is likely to steepen the curve, making it worse. Let's hope that ED find a way to mitigate the RZ disaster and can avoid a repetition of the Hawk and keep customers buying modules from their contractors.

It would be stating the obvious to point out that if one feels that the core is on the verge of obsolescence, then DCS probably isn't for you, regardless of what's happening with modules. You've listed the dates these modules first became available, while two modules on the list are still receiving new features and three other modules on that list have recently received new iterations so I guess the concern is based on how long customers have been able to fly these, rather than how up-to-date they are. DCS modules have long development times and most become available to people during EA, if someone don't want something that's been available to people for some time then any module that gets released in EA is probably going to be of little interest, but then if the core is borderline busted for you then you probably aren't going to play regardless of the specifics of any modules.

Personally, I don't think the length of time a software product has existed has any direct relationship to its inherent worth. I appreciate that DCS has a core that is in constant development  and I don't see anything approaching obsolescence or so buggy I'd reconsider playing. I dig the deep modules that contain an enormous amount of work and I've got much more interest in its depth and immersion than how recently it became available. I guess you see something very different, and that's valid, but I wouldn't waste your time arguing the relevance of the date a module first becomes available if the core is so detrimental to your experience.

Edited Sunday at 10:08 AM by Horns
Typo

[Oban]

1 hour ago, gbk said:

100% Correct my friend.. This is the basis of the frustration for many of us who had paid Razbam well before they jumped into the DCS.  Although we were burned before with their products' abandoning practices ("stepped away from..." they call it in their website),  we were forgiving enough and trusted that this time around they will be devoted to what they were selling . ED responsibility was that having  the Hawk's experience, and since they are a corporate, they must have investigated Razbams past and their previous "stepp aways" and then they must have had suitably formulated their contracts,before having us, the customers risk our money.   

Its called doing their due Diligence, it's sad because all of Razbams modules for DCS world are great, a few curve balls here and there, but for the best part, they're great, I use present tense, as the ones I have are still working. 

It's also testament to the various artists that RZ got onboard for each of those modules, and it's those individuals that I feel for the most, owners and CEO's always seem to survive shytstorms, unless they go to coldplay concerts. 

[cfrag]

4 minutes ago, Horns said:

It would be stating the obvious to point out that if one feels that the core is on the verge of obsolescence, then DCS probably isn't for you

Unless I've already invested heavily into modules, and have been a loyal DCS customer for more than 10 years. I want DCS to survive much longer, and it pains me to see DCS moving in that direction.

I purchased the YAK when it came out in EA, and it's still not done today. That hurts, and it hurts ED's reputation, which is IMHO worse. Writing off the Hawk, Mudhen, Farmer, Harrier and Mig hurts. The question is: what am I learning from this? And I was looking at the 'what if' thought experiment of only purchasing non-EA modules produced by ED only. That was IMHO not a pretty sight, and IMHO shows what it would mean if ED's EA and Third Party policies deteriorate further. We could argue about the methodology, sure, but that's 'angels on the head of a pin'. ED's EA policies seem to try and misuse the Early Access term simply as a meaningless marketing gimmick: to make potential customers believe a module is 'new' when it's in fact many years old and no longer in active development - Yak, Viggen, Jeff etc. - something that I deem a bit unsavoury if not seedy. "EA" in DCS is to me a meaningless term. "Active Development" would be a more relevant term, and of those there are only a few modules in the catalogue. Receiving the odd maintenance update in my book does not qualify 'active development'. That's just 'on life support' so it can still run with the current version of DCS. 

15 minutes ago, Horns said:

I wouldn't waste your time arguing the relevance of the date a module first becomes available if the core is so detrimental to your experience.

My apologies for being obscure. The relative module age was part of the 'what if' thought experiment, underlining the extreme dependence of ED's business model on new EA one-off sales and no sustained income otherwise. If a module remains in "EA" for too long with no discernible development, the "EA" moniker loses meaning, and may serve to alienate customers.

With regards to DCS's core, it has slowly evolved, and since parts of it harken back to pre-2000 time, it's legacy and creakingly-old old core is apparent to me every time when I create a mission, every time I use at the Mission API. And the underlying core is ancient: it caps at 65535 object allocations - that's a 16 bit integer from 1990, a relic from libraries used at that time. Garbage collection is similarly old and dysfunctional, the reason why a dedicated DCS server (of which I run two) needs daily reboots. So, yes, DCS core is very, very old and in dire need of update. I've been with DCS for more than a decade, and around the block once or twice, just like you. I'm happy it still runs, and I'm hoping that ED manage to keep it together for much longer.

[Aapje]

1 hour ago, gbk said:

The case is that many of us here paid for products that will soon become obsolete without ED's choice.

Except that it was ED's choice to stop payment for DCS products over a conflict on the MCS side of things. That was ED's choice, at the expense of DCS players.

1 hour ago, gbk said:

Money for the majority of these products were paid well before this issue started, so the "non payments allegation" doesn't seem to apply for these.

And Razbam did deliver a product in return for those earnings, but it is not surprising that they need more money to keep adding features.

1 hour ago, gbk said:

Therefore, if you're also a paying customer, instead of start playing with the words and try to create sympathy for one of the parties, please consider Razbam CEO's latest abandonment statement and then tell us who is wrong and who is right.

So you expect Razbam to work for free? Do you think this is reasonable? If so, please become my personal assistant. I won't pay you for it, of course, but I assume that you are happy to work for free, since that is what you consider reasonable for others.

[Aapje]

12 hours ago, Hammer1-1 said:

My advice is to just....stop.

No one is forcing you to engage with me, so if you can't cope with someone calling out your nonsense, you can just ignore my posts. You aren't adding anything useful to the conversation anyway.

[AndyJWest]

20 minutes ago, Aapje said:

Except that it was ED's choice to stop payment for DCS products over a conflict on the MCS side of things. That was ED's choice, at the expense of DCS players.

That is an utterly absurd statement to make. ED reacted to what they claim was an infringement of their intellectual property rights. Any business who's sole source of income is dependent on proprietary intellectual property has to defend against infringement vigorously, or risk losing their entire business. Razbam will have signed a contract specifying the limits to what they are permitted to do with regard to ED's intellectual property. If Razbam has breached that core contractual clause (and there seems to be reasonable grounds to think they did, with regard to the Super Tucano they allegedly made for the EAF), it doesn't matter in the slightest whether it is supposedly 'MCS' or 'DCS' related. A breach of contract is a breach of contract. One that, if ED's version of events is true, could have lost them substantial sums of money, and if not acted on could result in even more of the same.

 

 

Edited Sunday at 11:15 AM by AndyJWest

[Aapje]

10 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

It's contract law 101, regardless of jurisdiction. If the terms of the contract are violated, then the contract is rendered void, and the penalty clauses (if present) kick in.

This is simply not true. For example, if I enter into a contract to buy a product, and the seller decides that they don't want to sell it to me for that price (for example, because the price at the wholesaler went up), then legally, I can still demand that they supply the product for that price. The seller cannot simply refund me my money, voiding the contract.

There are also situations where the situation cannot even be undone. For instance, if I eat at a restaurant, and then refuse to pay afterwards, the contract can not be undone, because the food is in my stomach and cannot be turned back into fresh ingredients, and the labor of the staff cannot be undone either.

And these are just some examples of how you are wrong.

Now, I do admire your brazenness, being so confident at making totally wrong statements, but it is exactly this kind of 'you need to believe these total falsehoods because Ron is a bad person who wronged me in the past' reasoning that I object to.

10 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

You're free to read up on the particulars on some Swiss government website, however I highly doubt that it's very different from how contract law works in the EU.

Contract law in the EU already doesn't work as you think it does. And neither does Swiss law:

https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/27/317_321_377/en

> A contract is void if its terms are impossible, unlawful or immoral.

> However, where the defect pertains only to certain terms of a contract, those terms alone are void unless there is cause to assume that the contract would not have been concluded without them.

And more information about the limited circumstances in which a contract becomes void under Swiss law: https://www.vischer.com/en/knowledge/blog/the-essentials-of-swiss-contract-law-rescission-of-contracts-no-9-40193-1-2/

10 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

I suggest you stop getting high on hopium and actually look at all the evidence, including Ron's past antics, not only ED's.

What hopium? I'm not hoping for anything. Why do you guys keep making these silly statements about me that make no sense at all?

And again, Ron's past antics are not actually evidence that Ron did certain things in this case. At most they can be evidence that certain things are in character for him. However, I haven't actually seen anyone say that Ron did anything in the past that is similar to what he is accused of now, so ultimately it all seems to boil down to you thinking that Ron is a bad person, and thus believing anything negative about him, regardless of there being a lack of evidence.

10 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

You're the one showing bias here, steadfastly refusing to see that RAZBAM's statements are pretty obviously designed to manipulate the audience

I constantly keep that in mind and interpret his statements, and the leaks, with the understanding that he would of course frame things to his benefit. Just like ED does.

So this is another example of you making false statements. Don't you get tired of writing things that are wrong?

10 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

and ignoring facts that you find inconvenient.

What facts? Spell them out, because I constantly see people making all kinds of vague allegations at me, but then they never actually deliver on providing those facts, because they don't exist.

[YoYo]

On 7/18/2025 at 1:08 AM, LorenLuke said:

The topic is therefore closed.

[Aapje]

5 hours ago, Oban said:

I said your comments are defamatory in nature, not to me, but towards ED, you clearly stated "for no apparent reason" and unless you're privy to contracts etc, since you act like a lawyer, look up the definition of defamation.

Only if you look up the definition of apparent: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/apparent

I chose this phrasing on purpose since it covers the publicly known evidence and is not a falsehood if there is secret evidence. Furthermore, my statement is a statement of opinion, not of fact, and opinions are not subject to defamation law.

5 hours ago, Oban said:

Leaked documents are not facts, those can be edited with photoshop very easily... you want to be factual, but just ignore everything on the front page.

You fail to understand the difference between evidence and fact. Evidence is generally open to interpretation, and facts are derived from evidence, but the evidence itself is not necessarily fact.

Furthermore, I have been very careful to not claim that the evidence is undoctored, usually by adding the word 'alleged', but my opinion is that it is unlikely that this evidence is doctored, given the immense risks to the leaking party if they would doctor evidence, and because the contents of the various leaked documents and conversations lack certain red flags that I would expect in falsified documents.

What is a lot more likely, is that the material that was leaked was not chosen to give the best understanding of the situation, but to frame things in the best way for a certain party. But of course we can't know what the contents is of conversations and documents that were not leaked for this reason.

Edited Sunday at 12:00 PM by Aapje

[nilpointer]

As well as comedic value I have also found this thread makes my fingers tired from thinking about all of the energy expended on so much pointless typing. As a result I have kept this short to save my fingers for some useful or even possibly enjoyable task.

Update: Fortunately I was able to still click on the "Launch DCS" button

Edited Sunday at 01:17 PM by nilpointer

[Aapje]

2 hours ago, AndyJWest said:

Any business who's sole source of income is dependent on proprietary intellectual property has to defend against infringement vigorously, or risk losing their entire business.

ED could have paid out the money for the DCS modules, and then withheld money from MCS payments (if Razbam gets money from other MCS projects), or could have made a separate claim. ED could also have first gone through the process of mediation or whatever is happening behind the scenes, before collecting on the fine. Depending on the exact details of the situation, ED could also have chosen to forego part of or all of the fine, in favor of a forward-looking resolution that ensures that similar situations won't happen again in the future, where that loss of income of the fine, is offset by having a successful long term relationship between ED & Razbam and not having the PR nightmare that ED suffers from now (and that this thread is a part of).

I understand that you are fully on the 'Razbam made them do it'-train, but ED had options. The current choice they made:

• Maximizes the fine and the chance that ED can collect their fine
• Maximizes the chance that the conflict over MCS would spill over to the DCS side
• Maximizes the chance that Razbam would stop supporting the modules
• Maximizes the chance that there is a long period of customer impact while the conflict is not yet resolved
• Maximizes the chance that the Razbam-ED relationship ends
• Increases the chance that customers are impacted and lose trust in third party modules/Razbam/ED, and thereby has negative long term impact on people's willingness to spend

Of course you are free to think that they made the best choice and that all those negative outcomes are fully justified by the income that ED gets from the fine. I think that ED most likely cost themselves more money through lost sales than what they gained through the fine. But it's fair to disagree on this.

However, when you start denying that ED could have made different decisions, it is not just a valid difference of opinion over whether what ED did was the best move, but simply becomes another way to put all the blame on Razbam, including for decisions that they didn't make, which is simply not fair.

2 hours ago, AndyJWest said:

Razbam will have signed a contract specifying the limits to what they are permitted to do with regard to ED's intellectual property. If Razbam has breached that core contractual clause (and there seems to be reasonable grounds to think they did, with regard to the Super Tucano they allegedly made for the EAF)

What are those reasonable grounds, then?

All I see is people simply believing ED, even though ED has supplied absolutely no evidence for their claims.

Please spell out how you think that Razbam violated their contract exactly and what evidence you have for that?

2 hours ago, AndyJWest said:

it doesn't matter in the slightest whether it is supposedly 'MCS' or 'DCS' related.

At the very least, it means that we weren't exactly told the truth when ED told us that MCS and DCS have nothing to do with each other and that we shouldn't concern ourselves with MCS. When drama from the MCS side spills over to the DCS side, then whatever happens on the MCS side becomes relevant to DCS customers.

2 hours ago, AndyJWest said:

One that, if ED's version of events is true, could have lost them substantial sums of money, and if not acted on could result in even more of the same.

We actually don't know if the alleged breach of contract by Razbam is something that was intentional and requires a (huge) fine to prevent it from repeating. I think that the most likely situation is that Ron made the not very unreasonable assumption that he would be free to sign a contract with the FAE for the development of the Tucano, since ED seems to have been fully aware that he was working on a deal, and that ED would then negotiate their license for MCS separately. If it was merely an innocent mistake, then it seems to me that it could have been resolved amicably by telling Ron off, and also changing the procedures on the part of ED, where they ensure that every contract for a custom plane is first vetted by ED, before it is presented to a military customer.

Ultimately, I think that the only good way to conduct business is to be (reasonably) forgiving when employees, subcontractors, etc make mistakes. Demanding to be fully made whole can feel like it is just, but ultimately it destroys trust and thus relationships.

Also, based on the very many people I've seen that say that they have or will reduce their spending due this conflict, I think that ED's choices have cost them substantial sums of money in lost sales, and they would probably have been better off to be forgiving to Ron, so the customers wouldn't have noticed. Winning the battle, but losing the war, is not a good outcome for ED.

Edited Sunday at 01:31 PM by Aapje

[Cab]

12 minutes ago, Aapje said:

All I see is people simply believing ED, even though ED has supplied absolutely no evidence for their claims.

Maybe because it's difficult, if not impossible, to image ED going thru this for anything other than believing they have been wronged by RAZBAM.

[AndyJWest]

39 minutes ago, Aapje said:

ED could have paid out the money for the DCS modules, and then withheld money from MCS payments (if Razbam gets money from other MCS projects), or could have made a separate claim.

Now you are just making stuff up. There is absolutely no evidence that Razbam were ever authorised to make anything for MCS. And nor have they ever stated that they did. It seems that ED offered an MCS contract, as a way forward which would put ED's IP back under their control, but Razbam have refused to sign. 

Since it is self-evident by now that you have nothing useful to this discussion, but are instead filling it up with whatever fantasy suits your agenda, I am adding you to my forum ignore list. 

 

[Pipe]

18 minutes ago, AndyJWest said:

Now you are just making stuff up. There is absolutely no evidence that Razbam were ever authorised to make anything for MCS. And nor have they ever stated that they did. It seems that ED offered an MCS contract, as a way forward which would put ED's IP back under their control, but Razbam have refused to sign. 

Since it is self-evident by now that you have nothing useful to this discussion, but are instead filling it up with whatever fantasy suits your agenda, I am adding you to my forum ignore list. 

 

So it’s ok that you, and other like minded people make stuff up?

Edited Sunday at 02:35 PM by Pipe

[Horns]

3 hours ago, cfrag said:

Unless I've already invested heavily into modules, and have been a loyal DCS customer for more than 10 years. I want DCS to survive much longer, and it pains me to see DCS moving in that direction.

I purchased the YAK when it came out in EA, and it's still not done today. That hurts, and it hurts ED's reputation, which is IMHO worse. Writing off the Hawk, Mudhen, Farmer, Harrier and Mig hurts. The question is: what am I learning from this? And I was looking at the 'what if' thought experiment of only purchasing non-EA modules produced by ED only. That was IMHO not a pretty sight, and IMHO shows what it would mean if ED's EA and Third Party policies deteriorate further. We could argue about the methodology, sure, but that's 'angels on the head of a pin'. ED's EA policies seem to try and misuse the Early Access term simply as a meaningless marketing gimmick: to make potential customers believe a module is 'new' when it's in fact many years old and no longer in active development - Yak, Viggen, Jeff etc. - something that I deem a bit unsavoury if not seedy. "EA" in DCS is to me a meaningless term. "Active Development" would be a more relevant term, and of those there are only a few modules in the catalogue. Receiving the odd maintenance update in my book does not qualify 'active development'. That's just 'on life support' so it can still run with the current version of DCS. 

My apologies for being obscure. The relative module age was part of the 'what if' thought experiment, underlining the extreme dependence of ED's business model on new EA one-off sales and no sustained income otherwise. If a module remains in "EA" for too long with no discernible development, the "EA" moniker loses meaning, and may serve to alienate customers.

With regards to DCS's core, it has slowly evolved, and since parts of it harken back to pre-2000 time, it's legacy and creakingly-old old core is apparent to me every time when I create a mission, every time I use at the Mission API. And the underlying core is ancient: it caps at 65535 object allocations - that's a 16 bit integer from 1990, a relic from libraries used at that time. Garbage collection is similarly old and dysfunctional, the reason why a dedicated DCS server (of which I run two) needs daily reboots. So, yes, DCS core is very, very old and in dire need of update. I've been with DCS for more than a decade, and around the block once or twice, just like you. I'm happy it still runs, and I'm hoping that ED manage to keep it together for much longer.

I am not a coder and I don't run a DCS server so I don't have an understanding of the DCS core on that kind of level, so I'll accept what you say regarding aspects of it being outdated and simply say, for my simple needs, I've always found the core more than sufficient and fit for purpose, but you aren't the only one to express dissatisfaction with elements of it.

Your interpretation of EA being used as a marketing term is interesting to me as I always saw the EA label as making a product less attractive rather than more so. Either way, I acknowledge that it's used inconsistently between different devs. Personally, when I rethought my attitude to buying EA (2023) I was still comfortable buying EA from ED because I was comfortable with their standard for a module leaving EA, and the only other risk I saw to an EA purchase was bankruptcy, and ofc if that happened DCS as a whole would be kaput so it was neither here nor there. I know next to nothing about the Yak, what you've spoken of certainly sounds frustrating and such an experience could well have made me more averse to buying EA from ED.

I get what you're saying about doing this as a 'thought experiment', and while I restate my belief that the date a product first becomes available is immaterial, I also accept that the date of last significant development isn't readily available so judging according to that wasn't an option. Personally, I could happily live with the F-18, F-16, A-10C and F-5 being my next four modules so I could see a way forward for someone sticking purely to ED modules once they're out of EA. Either way, I'm glad we both want to see DCS succeed for a long time to come.

[Oban]

It's amazing how many people here seem to be in possesion of the concractual agreements between ED and Razbam... 

2 hours ago, Aapje said:

Ultimately, I think that the only good way to conduct business is to be (reasonably) forgiving when employees, subcontractors, etc make mistakes. Demanding to be fully made whole can feel like it is just, but ultimately it destroys trust and thus relationships.

 

[MiG21bisFishbedL]

Well, if you're looking to sell bikes or cars, I suppose you WANT to be taken for a ride. I'm not so sure here.

[OhNoMyHookBroke]

2 hours ago, Oban said:

It's amazing how many people here seem to be in possesion of the concractual agreements between ED and Razbam... 

 

I think it's safe to say that you're also one of those people.