DCS F-16C Early Access, what's left, what's next.

[NineLine]

17 hours ago, nessuno0505 said:

When A-10C and Ka-50 came out ED had only those two modules, so they could concentrate on the minutiae, which is what made us fall in love with DCS: the extreme accuracy in details. Now maybe they've grown up, but we have: f/a-18c, f-16c, ah-64d, plus a long series of aircrafts and helicopters that are certainly easier to simulate as they are less complex in avionics, but which still need to be maintained and bug fixed over time. Maybe ED no longer has time to go into as much detail as when there were only a-10c and ka-50. Perhaps they chose to focus more on quantity, partially sacrificing quality. Certainly the frenzy of users to buy everything that comes out in early access has not helped to make it clear what we really want from DCS. As far as I'm concerned, I'd prefer to see fewer modules, but a return of those few at the same a-10c and ka-50 quality ED has amply demonstrated to be capable of and which we have been used to.

There are a few things to consider with this though.

1) The A-10C and Ka-50 benefited from other work outside of DCS that afforded much more detail and the permission to have that detail, not every module has this sort of access and we MUST be careful what we model and what we don't.

2) If you expect a 1:1 simulation of a military aircraft that are still in service or recently in service you will be disappointed. Even the A-10C as much as it had/has is still missing a lot of things that are simply not allowed to be included. This includes flight modelling, weapons and systems. We are not making something that can be used to train pilots to fly, and we are especially not making something to train pilots to fight against. 

3) This is an entertainment product, a game. It is also very complex for many things that we are allowed to model, it doesn't mean that the instructions on how to model it are in a manual somewhere, in that the code needs to be created for any source material we can use. You cannot copy and paste that into DCS and it magically works. Many of the systems on the F/A-18C, AH-64D and F-16C are more complex than many things seen in the early modules. Even the CH-47F has a completely different Flight Model than we have ever done, so it has its own challenges. 

DCS is and always will be a journey, especially when you get in on day 1 of Early Access, some days it can be frustrating but I think I can safely say that all our modules, even the ones not complete are still a ton of fun. And even though they are not 1:1 simulations, we hope you find them to be, when completed, to be a very faithful and immersive experience. 

All the aircraft listed above are still being worked on. We are not done with them and they will continue to get better. 

Thanks

[buceador]

15 minutes ago, NineLine said:

We are not making something that can be used to train pilots to fly, and we are especially not making something to train pilots to fight against.

No parallels needed here as they are glaringly obvious.  I think this very important point is frequently overlooked by critics of modules.

[Pavlin_33]

2 hours ago, NineLine said:

...This includes flight modelling, weapons...

3) This is an entertainment product, a game...

Thank you very much for acknowledging publicly something I was suspecting for years now.

Only thing that bothers me is your product's name: DCS should really be changed to DCG, 'cause calling something like this a simulator is missleading. Or at least putting an asterisk behind it, so that people are aware what are they getting them selves into.

Me personally, I am very pleased by your post - it has definitely cleared things up for me.

 

[greenmamba]

2 hours ago, NineLine said:

There are a few things to consider with this though.

1) The A-10C and Ka-50 benefited from other work outside of DCS that afforded much more detail and the permission to have that detail, not every module has this sort of access and we MUST be careful what we model and what we don't.

2) If you expect a 1:1 simulation of a military aircraft that are still in service or recently in service you will be disappointed. Even the A-10C as much as it had/has is still missing a lot of things that are simply not allowed to be included. This includes flight modelling, weapons and systems. We are not making something that can be used to train pilots to fly, and we are especially not making something to train pilots to fight against. 

3) This is an entertainment product, a game. It is also very complex for many things that we are allowed to model, it doesn't mean that the instructions on how to model it are in a manual somewhere, in that the code needs to be created for any source material we can use. You cannot copy and paste that into DCS and it magically works. Many of the systems on the F/A-18C, AH-64D and F-16C are more complex than many things seen in the early modules. Even the CH-47F has a completely different Flight Model than we have ever done, so it has its own challenges. 

DCS is and always will be a journey, especially when you get in on day 1 of Early Access, some days it can be frustrating but I think I can safely say that all our modules, even the ones not complete are still a ton of fun. And even though they are not 1:1 simulations, we hope you find them to be, when completed, to be a very faithful and immersive experience. 

All the aircraft listed above are still being worked on. We are not done with them and they will continue to get better. 

Thanks

I don't really get it. How is a complete flight model going to train others the fly against it ? 

In the civil world we have level D  simulators, which are supposed to represent the real deal and train us, well it is still a lot different than the real thing. It doesn't move the same, it doesn't feel the same and it does not react the same. The details which make the difference, those details count.  DCs is computer based, you are not going to train anyone to fly against those systems.  In that case, do not reproduce the Hornet high alpha capacity in slow speed.

You may think that i am being very salty against ED, it may be true but again, those are excuses why not to do it right. 

Also, if all of this is true, when real pilots do test your modules on youtube, then please comment below the videos by saying that it is not accurate on purpose.  

[NineLine]

17 minutes ago, Pavlin_33 said:

Thank you very much for acknowledging publicly something I was suspecting for years now.

Only thing that bothers me is your product's name: DCS should really be changed to DCG, 'cause calling something like this a simulator is missleading. Or at least putting an asterisk behind it, so that people are aware what are they getting them selves into.

Me personally, I am very pleased by your post - it has definitely cleared things up for me.

 

It's a Combat Simulator, it's a game, many games are simulators, and nothing needs to be changed or noted. People should understand that we are not making a military-grade sim for their living room. You are buying a game, it's a Simulator game no more or less than any other type of simulator game found on any other platform for sale for Windows PCs.

10 minutes ago, greenmamba said:

I don't really get it. How is a complete flight model going to train others the fly against it ? 

I am not sure if that is a serious question.

 

10 minutes ago, greenmamba said:

Also, if all of this is true, when real pilots do test your modules on youtube, then please comment below the videos by saying that it is not accurate on purpose.  

Once again, these modules were never meant to be 1:1 replications of the real aircraft for an assortment of reasons. I am not saying that this means any of the listed modules are finished, I am only pointing out that they will never be exact. Whether its unavailable documents, protected systems, requests from manufactures, etc. 

[greenmamba]

It is a serious question. 

Like you said it is computer based. The other user is also flying from his computer, all he will see is a behavior, and behaviors we all see them at airshows where we see how fast an F-22 comes around the turn, we see how the flight controls of the Rafale and Eurofighter move at slow speed ... we can compare those to how the flight controls move for a MIG or Sukhoi and understand the generation of flight controls. 

 

But i got your point, and no matter how much i disagree with the way your team goes about the F-16, i appreciate the updates and way it has come along the years, thanks for the work and putting up with us. 

[Pavlin_33]

18 minutes ago, NineLine said:

It's a Combat Simulator, it's a game, many games are simulators, and nothing needs to be changed or noted. People should understand that we are not making a military-grade sim for their living room. You are buying a game, it's a Simulator game no more or less than any other type of simulator game found on any other platform for sale for Windows PCs.

A simulator tries to simulate things and does things for sake of reality, a game does them for the sake of entertainment. Counter-Strike is a game, X-Plane is a simulator, kind of thing.

It's the first time in DCS community that I have heard of a term "simulator game", where you are trying to consolidate two opposing terms into one. If you blur the line between simulation and arcade like that, it opens up doors for anything to be called a simulator and this IMHO is wrong.

Is Warthunder, for example a simulator, a game, or a gamulator?

 

[BIGNEWY]

Please lets not derail this thread with what a sim and a game is, DCS is for entertainment purposes, not for training, there are professional tools for that. 

 

[YenLin801215]

I really hope that the official launches a module that allows the F-16 to mount an additional AIM-7.

Even if it's not realistic based on our version of the F-16, it could add some gameplay after all this is a game.

Edited September 16, 2024 by YenLin801215

[buceador]

18 minutes ago, YenLin801215 said:

Even if it's not realistic...

That phrase will immediately disallow it.

[nessuno0505]

Il 15/09/2024 at 08:18, NineLine ha scritto:

1) The A-10C and Ka-50 benefited from other work outside of DCS that afforded much more detail and the permission to have that detail, not every module has this sort of access and we MUST be careful what we model and what we don't.

2) If you expect a 1:1 simulation of a military aircraft that are still in service or recently in service you will be disappointed. Even the A-10C as much as it had/has is still missing a lot of things that are simply not allowed to be included. This includes flight modelling, weapons and systems. We are not making something that can be used to train pilots to fly, and we are especially not making something to train pilots to fight against. 

3) This is an entertainment product, a game.

I'm well aware of this: DCS is a simulator because it aims to make people understand how a military airplane works and what is the workflow required to a pilot; in that sense DCS truly is a simulator. But it's also a game, since its target is the civilians, who play/fly it on a home PC, with gaming hotas devices. It's not a tool for military training, and in that sense it's also a game. For this reason I have nothing against the Ka-50 III, even if it does not really exist IRL: a Ka-52 cannot be made and the new version adds fun and gameplay to an already very high quality product, so I bought the upgrade immediately. I also can understand that you do not have the same amount of publicly available data for all the aircrafts. As for the f-16, I would simply hope that its level of simulation would not be dissimilar to other consumer F-16 simulators available around (without naming it, there is just another one anyway).

Edited September 16, 2024 by nessuno0505

[BIGNEWY]

2 minutes ago, nessuno0505 said:

I'm well aware of this: DCS is a simulator because it aims to make people understand how a military airplane works and what is the workflow required to a pilot; in that sense DCS truly is a simulator. But it's also a game, since its target is the civilians, who play/fly it on a home PC, with gaming hotas devices. It's not a tool for military training, and in that sense it's also a game. For this reason I have nothing against the Ka-50 III, even if it does not really exist IRL: a Ka-52 cannot be made and the new version adds fun and gameplay to an already very high quality product, so I bought the upgrade immediately. I also can understand that you do not have the same amount of publicly available data for all the aircrafts. As for the f-16, I would simply hope that its level of simulation would not be dissimilar to other consumer F-16 simulators available around (without naming it, there is just another one anyway).

 

We are making a very specific block of the F-16C and we do not have the luxury of picking and choosing from various blocks. We will complete all of the features we have said we will complete, but we can only use public data and SME feedback. Work will continue even after we leave early access on bugs and wish list items, the viper is very important to us. 

thank you 

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

On 9/15/2024 at 8:18 AM, NineLine said:

we MUST be careful what we model and what we don't

Yes of course but that doesn’t explain why in certain cases even FC3 is more complete than recent full-fidelity modules - such as the ability to directly command Wingman 4.

Other differences regarding communication have already been pointed out in this thread (ordering a wingman to scout ahead etc).

[BIGNEWY]

8 minutes ago, Raven (Elysian Angel) said:

Yes of course but that doesn’t explain why in certain cases even FC3 is more complete than recent full-fidelity modules - such as the ability to directly command Wingman 4.

Other differences regarding communication have already been pointed out in this thread (ordering a wingman to scout ahead etc).

these are gameplay / UI issues that will need to be looked into, and are not directly features of the F-16C aircraft. 

Please PM me if there is a public report for it, I will check our internal one also. 

edit: found the report internally and bumped it

thanks

 

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

3 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

edit: found the report internally and bumped it

thanks

You too! 

[metzger]

On 9/16/2024 at 2:33 PM, Raven (Elysian Angel) said:

Yes of course but that doesn’t explain why in certain cases even FC3 is more complete than recent full-fidelity modules - such as the ability to directly command Wingman 4.

Other differences regarding communication have already been pointed out in this thread (ordering a wingman to scout ahead etc).

I think it is mainly because FC3 was a standalone game, sequel to lomac and FC2, titles released at times when released internet was not such a big think and studios couldn't get away with just drop patches every week. 

Most of what we have as DCS AI and ATC especially, is this same AI in Lomac and flaming cliffs dating more than 15 years now.

Black shark was also initially a stand alone game, so a lot of the KA-50 single player mechanics was designed for this full game only. It was released with a lot of additional functionalities than just the module itself:

"""Improvements over the original "DCS: Black Shark" include:

 

• Updated Mission Editor with many new features

• New air, land, and sea AI units at incredible levels of detail

• Improved AI for a smarter, more realistic behavior"""

Similar is true for the A-10C,  the jtac was one of the listed features for the A-10 release:

• Fully interactive Forward Air Controller (FAC) that helps you find targets.

Check the features here:

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/news/dcs_a_10c_warthog_released/#:~:text=DUXFORD%2C UK%2C February 21%2C,a digital download for %2459.99.&text="DCS%3A A-10C Warthog" is a PC simulation,Close Air Support attack aircraft.

 

Since then, I can't recall ED dropping a module with some sweet additions like this, besides the AI crew for Hind and AH64 but I suppose they had no other way to make them remotely usable otherwise. It's just a single module, many of which totally out of place, in early access for 6-7 years.

Also those were never really taken and improved since then, jtac can be used with other modules but it's logic dates to 2011 and it has a lot of potential, it still can only give mgrs and not LL without a mod. 

While there were some minor improvements in AI units, and some attempts in the BFM arena, most of the work on AI is a cycle of introduce bugs then fix them and introduce more new ones. Playing DCS in single player or even MP for the most of the people is flying as singleton because the AI wingman is most of the time a burden then a help, don't even try to attempt 4 ship.. Anyway, I spent too much time writing this instead of playing the campaign I recently started on the other sim.. bingo fuel.. ejecting.

 

 

 

[NineLine]

Sorry all, this seems to have gonna off the rails now. Closing. Thanks all.