What did I think of Kiowa? It needs to improve in some areas!

[RealDCSpilot]

No surprise to me. And these are no private matters, it's about professionalism. I totally understand each of the team members who had to choose to leave.

Edited January 15 by RealDCSpilot

[Rhinozherous]

Sad to read that they have problems (it does not matter which sort of problem). I thought the Kiowa is starting a new flavor of helos in DCS. I like the way they made the UI and AI. I am glad that the Kiowa will work in the future and that they released it in a pretty much finished state. But it would be sad if there is nothing new from PC in the future. 

[AirSenpai]

 I hope they figure things out, fix in house problems, every company / team have problems, i am glad that Polychop is being more transparent than they used to be, they are doing the right thing, communicating and reassuring us, customers and their investors.

It is better than being kept in the dark, we do have to support all dev teams, not only PC.

We do need more developers, companies and modules for DCS.

We can only hope, wait and show support.

[Headwarp]

Hadn't been in my "pit" for a year+ and was quite surprised to find the Gazelle's force trim working correctly with the old MSFFB2.    <-- was on the fence about the Kiowa until that happened so I did that... before I heard the news.  

P-chop.. hope you're able to give these modules a long life.   I may never do anything more with them than fly them around empty maps but with FFB working correctly that is an insanely enjoyable experience and as a VR user, I can't say I have complaints about the visual models.   I'm here to fly, and I certainly appreciate the effort that went into making that such an enjoyable experience.  

Here's to hoping for the best. 

[AirSenpai]

some buttons are bugged on multicrew and can't fire the .50 as the result of that.
The .50 it will go burst fire mode (have to press and release multiple times) where as single pilot works fine with the first and second detent.

[ThorBrasil]

I wish the team the best and hope they improve the module in 3D modeling, textures and systems. I love the module and want to see it become big.

Polychop Community,

We wanted to give you some updates on a few things that we think you as the community will be happy to hear. 

New Developer: Polychop has hired a new developer who is already hard at work diving deep into the internal systems to get up to speed as fast as he can. He brings a lot of experience to the team and we are very lucky and excited to have him on board.

New Testers: Polychop has brought some new internal testers on board who are already very familiar with the modules. The testers are getting to work starting with your bug reports here in the Discord to start addressing the current issues that are most important to you, The Community. 

New Community Manager: I wanted to formally introduce myself as the Community Manager for Polychop. I am very grateful for the opportunity to be a part of the Polychop Team. In addition to being the Community Manager I will also be part of the internal testing team, and I plan to start working on some of the most common bug reports that you all have already made to help get them taken care of.  With that being said, I have spent a lot of time in this Discord both posting, and reading what you all have had to say over the last couple years. My goal is to help bring you as much insight as I can on things I am able talk about. I will be your eyes and ears as much as I can. Please feel free to reach out to me at any time.

New Internal Systems: We have implemented a new internal system that is really going to help streamline the testing and bug fixing process. It is going to make communication and collaboration on bug fixing between the Devs and Testers much more fluid, as well as make it easier to align with each other on priorities of work.

What we need from you all on this topic: To help us keep things sorted as best we can in here, we ask that you only post bugs in the bug report channel which can be found here ⁠oh58d-bugs. We really don't want to miss anything and would hate for something could get lost in conversation in one of the other channels. Additionally we ask that you do a quick search in the bug report channel for the bug you are experiencing before posting as to help us keep the number of duplicate reports to a minimum. Remember, the more detail you can provide the better. If it is possible to include a video, track file, or log along with your description of what happened that helps us testers a lot when it comes to reproducing the bugs on our side. 

POLYCHOP IS HIRING: We are looking to add to the team! Current open positions in order of priority are C++/Lua Coders, and 3D Artists. If you are interested or know someone who may be interested in joining the Polychop team, please reach out to Polychop Sven, or to CYPHER11  who will be handling all things Human Resources, or you can reach out to me and I will help get you headed in the right direction and in contact with one of them.

Thank you for your continued support everyone!

Edited February 22 by ThorBrasil

[Gladius]

That's great news. Let's hope it continues. The Kiowa is just my taste. Let's hope that communication with Apex improves.

[AirSenpai]

On 2/23/2025 at 4:58 PM, Gladius said:

That's great news. Let's hope it continues. The Kiowa is just my taste. Let's hope that communication with Apex improves.

i hope the new dev receive lots of love from both customers and polychop!

 

[minar]

I think other devs who are disgruntled could learn something from Polychop. I like how they care about us. We spend a lot of money on this sim. I wish the devs of the Harrier would act like this. This whole trend of the bickering between ED and devs needs to end. Regardless of who is at fault. If this sim does not get a handle on this and continues supporting the modules that are in limbo. They are going to lose a lot of money and I sure as heck will not buy anymore of it is not rectified.

 

Thanks Polychop for making heli's and looking out for the consumer and doing the best you can to be on top of communication, quality, and professionalism

[Kinkkujuustovoileipä]

On 4/20/2025 at 10:43 PM, minar said:

I think other devs who are disgruntled could learn something from Polychop. I like how they care about us. We spend a lot of money on this sim. I wish the devs of the Harrier would act like this. This whole trend of the bickering between ED and devs needs to end. Regardless of who is at fault. If this sim does not get a handle on this and continues supporting the modules that are in limbo. They are going to lose a lot of money and I sure as heck will not buy anymore of it is not rectified.

 

Thanks Polychop for making heli's and looking out for the consumer and doing the best you can to be on top of communication, quality, and professionalism

This is complete rubbish. The Polychop situation has nothing to do with ED.

[minar]

On 4/25/2025 at 6:05 AM, Kinkkujuustovoileipä said:

This is complete rubbish. The Polychop situation has nothing to do with ED.

Rubbish my arse, and I was rerring to other contractors of DCS not polychop that have left us all in limbo with un-updated modules. You seem to have misread what I said. no where in my post was I criticizing Polychop.

Edited May 10 by minar

[Kinkkujuustovoileipä]

On 5/10/2025 at 10:54 PM, minar said:

Rubbish my arse, and I was rerring to other contractors of DCS not polychop that have left us all in limbo with un-updated modules. You seem to have misread what I said. no where in my post was I criticizing Polychop.

No, I understood what you said. I'd like to try and explain myself with some contextual points:

1) Every other third party developer I've interacted with has cared about their modules. However they work within the capacities they have available and sometimes that just means they don't have the resources to maintain older modules at the expense of working on new projects

2) Adding to the above, I don't think you understand the 'drop off' in sales after a release and just how severe that can be. DCS for developers is like a dog - it's not just for Christmas, it's for life. A DCS module has no finite end. It goes on forever, yet the money it is making later on is just not enough to justify the investment required to renovate it. You'd have to most likely pay tens of thousands of dollars for a full art overhaul, for example - which is one of the most obvious and common issues with older modules - and it simply will not make that money back. There are ways to do this e.g. BS3 or A-10C2, but in order to justify selling an update you end up having to invest even more because you need developer time to design and create marketable features on top of QOL or art updates - or risk the wrath of the community. It's not easy.

3) There are legal methods in place that guarantee modules do not simply disappear. I realise the irony of saying this after Razbam's modules have been removed from sale, but again, that situation is not comparable to what happened with PC.

4) I'm grateful for your thanks regarding the quality, professionalism and communication that people like Dan, Rober, Joose and I brought to Polychop. We worked very hard on that. Especially Dan. It was not easy.

5) I think that most of your ire is directed at Razbam, and I get it. But that's an extreme situation and I think it's fair to say both parties have learnt a lot from it. I don't think it's fair to point to that situation and declare that PC is special - rather I think you should recognise that the RB situation is what is special, or unique, or more extreme, whatever comparison you want to make. And the reactions of the people involved reflect that. I certainly can't hold a moral high ground on those developers who spoke out, because I haven't been through what they went though. But given what we ex-developers of Polychop went through, I can absolutely understand the emotional distress and difficulties experienced having put so much of themselves into their work. Losing the Kiowa and Gazelle wasn't easy for us, especially after all the work we did to fix the reputation of Polychop, but at least it was our choice to do so. They didn't have that choice.

Anyway, I hope this helps clarify my position a bit. I do understand your feeling, but I feel directing it at Razbam is pointless and possibly unfair given that situation, and aiming at any other developer (including ED) would similarly be unfair.

[Shadok]

On 5/12/2025 at 6:38 PM, Kinkkujuustovoileipä said:

 Losing the Kiowa and Gazelle wasn't easy for us, especially after all the work we did to fix the reputation of Polychop, but at least it was our choice to do so.

 

Hello,

I haven't follow all the discussion on the Kiowa and PC, so i'm wondering what does that mean?

Thanks

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

15 minutes ago, Shadok said:

I haven't follow all the discussion on the Kiowa and PC, so i'm wondering what does that mean?

Scroll up and read  

[Shadok]

if it's on page 24, I don't understand. All I read is good news, nothing about losing.

[Kinkkujuustovoileipä]

2 hours ago, Shadok said:

if it's on page 24, I don't understand. All I read is good news, nothing about losing.

My point was that when we chose to leave Polychop due to our disputes with Sven, we obviously could no longer continue working on the Kiowa or Gazelle. Both projects meant - and continue to mean - a lot to us personally. We felt that we had lost them. It's hard for us to see the issues being reported and know we can't do anything - especially for Rober and I who keep reacting like "hey I know how to fix that!"  and Dan really has a strong connection to the Gazelle, after all he was instrumental in organizing and making the 2024 updates happen with all the new liveries and features for it. That really was all his leadership and management and work with the community contributors making that happen. It's hard to see all of that just stop and a now disaffected community when you know you have the experience and capability to change or fix it.

[Shadok]

Thank for the answer. I hope you've found something to bounce back from.