DCS: Black Shark 1.0.1 Read Me

[Druid_]

Name a flight sim that does better. ;)

 

I think we can knock one on the head as GGt says "its a flight sim". It is NOT however a battle simulator. Therein lies the problem. As a helicopter flight sim that can launch weapons its a fantastic simulator and full credit goes to the guys at ED for this.

 

As an Aircraft Battle Simulator it has a looong way to go and I shall wait to see what happens with the next release (i.e. the A-10) in this regard. I do think that by now though that the DCS team are aware of the shortfalls in this area and hope they are taking some serious steps towards improving this particualr area. Only the next release will show.

 

There are plenty of threads on this topic and there are also some official statements about it, but this one is about the patch. So let's stay on topic, please.

 

If you read carefully, you will see that we are all taking about the patch. Unless of course you want this thread to be just for praise and not criticism. Also, given the thousands of posts on this site there is going to be some repitition.

[GGTharos]

I think we can knock one on the head as GGt says "its a flight sim". It is NOT however a battle simulator. Therein lies the problem. As a helicopter flight sim that can launch weapons its a fantastic simulator and full credit goes to the guys at ED for this.

 

As an Aircraft Battle Simulator it has a looong way to go and I shall wait to see what happens with the next release (i.e. the A-10) in this regard. I do think that by now though that the DCS team are aware of the shortfalls in this area and hope they are taking some serious steps towards improving this particualr area. Only the next release will show.

 

I think you're probably aware that it hasn't been done yet, and it will be a while before such a thing is done. You won't be getting everything at once, nor will you necessarily get what YOU want, WHEN you want it.

Yes, ED is proceeding to upgrade things with everything release - every part of the sim. It's not a revolution, though, it's evolution.

 

 

If you read carefully, you will see that we are all taking about the patch. Unless of course you want this thread to be just for praise and not criticism. Also, given the thousands of posts on this site there is going to be some repitition.

 

Yeah, I see people writing about the patch and complaining about their pet peeve as usual; criticism is great when it's constructive. Telling people your life's crumbling because something wasn't included in the patch isn't, and that's exactly how things come across ;)

[Druid_]

Constructive criticism by definition implies that not only do you criticise something but suggest a possible way of fixing it. Since we have little in the way of resources or knowledge to do the latter (and you can hardly expect us to as your previous posts have implied) then that only leaves criticism. So to rely on an old saying "if you can't take the heat then get out of the kitchen".

 

AS to one's life crumbling because of the patch .... rofl. Hardly! I enjoy debate, dialogue and playing devils advocate. If you'd prefer constant praise rather than criticism so be it but you can hardly expect every 'wish', 'fault', criticism to be constructive.

[senn]

I don't know if it has already been mentioned, but it would be nice to see better support for more axis (IE x52/x52pro) for things like radio dials/fire rate/altitude hold adjustment (these are just things i'm pulling out of my head, but you get the idea, stuff that usually has dials/can be adjusted up down)

 

Can't wait to try the new trim system, the old system always felt a bit un natural to me :)

[159th_Viper]

.......If you read carefully, you will see that we are all taking about the patch. Unless of course you want this thread to be just for praise and not criticism. Also, given the thousands of posts on this site there is going to be some repitition.

 

Seriously...........;)

 

Was not going to bother here, but this borders on the Frustrating it does........There seems to be 2 Pet Peeves floating about:

 

1-Trees: It HAS been explained FFS.........and not just in Rudimentary terms, but a clear and conscise explanation has been proffered by EvilB iirc. How one, after having due regard to the said explanation, is still willing to tender any form of rational submission/argument for the POV expressed is truly beyond me......And before I get asked for said explanation - use the Search Function........:music_whistling:

 

2-A.I. Whilst I am one of the first to Applaud the absolute Lack of Intellegence in our Artificial Bretheren, I can again applaud and appreciate the Progress being made to date - again vindicated by actual In-Game behaviour and Developers/Testers' comments.

 

Having due regard to where ED has been, where they are now and where they want to be, I personally am more than happy with where I am now re my Flight Sim Hobby.

 

Maybe more Gratitude and Less Attitude is called for.............

[senn]

lol viper, i feel like i've walked into the LFS (racing sim) forums....get the same sorta thing over there too...ungrateful plebs who don't bother to read stuff properly :)

[Feuerfalke]

It was clear that a change of this magnitude would never be possible to come with a single patch and this is true for A.I. as well as the collideable vegetation and it is also true for new graphics engine, dynamic weather and full dynamic campaign, etc, all those little things demanded over the last months. But it is not possible to include these in a patch and nobody ever said they would, simply because neither is a little task in reality.

 

So, you might take the released information about the patch as a new starting point to beat the dead horse even further, because you are personally missing information on the named features, but that has nothing to do with discussing the patch, honestly. :smilewink:

[ruprecht]

Name a flight sim that does better. ;)

 

Is that the attitude in the dev team GG? "Hey, nobody else has good ground AI or terrain-masking trees, so there's no pressure for us to do it". Come on, that's a cop-out and you know it. I thought you guys wanted to set the standard, not use the standard as an excuse.

 

As I said, the sim is excellent and I enjoy it a great deal. However, the trees and AI are legitimate complaints in an attack helo sim.

[GGTharos]

It amuses me that your legitimate complaint is something that hasn't been done before.

 

So I'll say it again: If you think it's so easy, go ahead and show people how to do it.

 

Eagle has made it clear that they will keep improving things; it's just too bad that certain people lacking specific knowledge want it all now and think it CAN all be done right now. There's no cop out, there's just people who don't have a clue how hard it is how to do all this.

 

Eagle offered a very good explanation regarding the trees; it also announced that work on the AI would slowly proceed. What are you complaining about, then?

 

That you don't have it all, NOW?

 

Do you really enjoy beating dead horses so much?

 

Is that the attitude in the dev team GG? "Hey, nobody else has good ground AI or terrain-masking trees, so there's no pressure for us to do it". Come on, that's a cop-out and you know it. I thought you guys wanted to set the standard, not use the standard as an excuse.

 

As I said, the sim is excellent and I enjoy it a great deal. However, the trees and AI are legitimate complaints in an attack helo sim.

[ruprecht]

Actually I'm an enterprise software architect and I know exactly how hard it is. If my customers told me that my product was great but lacked a a critical feature, my response would not be "waaah, you think it's so easy, you do it".

 

I also know a defensive response to an obviously sore point when I see it. So I'll stop prodding you.

 

Peace

Edited July 26, 2009 by ruprecht

[WynnTTr]

Actually I'm an enterprise software architect and I know exactly how hard it is. If my customers told me that my product was great but lacked a a critical feature, my response would not be "waaah, you think it's so easy, you do it".

 

I also know a defensive response to an obviously sore point when I see it. So I'll stop prodding you.

 

Peace

The question is did ED achieve the goals they set out for themselves? I'd argue they did - and did it extremely well.

 

And the difference here is that they didn't write software to the specs of the customer - they wrote it to their specs and released it as a general rollout, as is. You didn't commission them to release software to your specs.

If that were the case, then you have every right to complain about 'critical' features missing.

 

ED didn't fail or miss a critical feature, they only failed to your expectations - which, unfortunately, doesn't mean much.

[ruprecht]

Fair post, noted. I disagree on some points, but I'm not going to inflame the argument further, it's all been said before. My thoughts are on the record.

[th3flyboy]

actually I can think of a few flight sims that do trees right...

 

EE2

EECH (Modded) (IIRC)

Comanche 3 and 4

Longbow (IIRC)

 

just about every heli sim out there but this has collidable trees....

 

the fact that trees are just shaders and not real just kills the low level combat for me.... I can't use trees properly, so why bother....

Edited July 26, 2009 by th3flyboy

[104th_Crunch]

Thanks for the update ED. It is nice that things are flowing along and we can look forward to future updates and DCS releases.

[Napa]

I'm very pleased now to see that ED is working on the current problems and trying to improve their products.

 

But 1 thing I still didn't manage to comprehend - Why don't they hire more manpower so they can finish their projects a bit quicker??? There are thousands and thousands of talented and experienced 3D modelers, texture artists, software developers and so on. IMHO they look like they need some help to get things done faster. Their market is a very impatient market.

[th3flyboy]

I'm very pleased now to see that ED is working on the current problems and trying to improve their products.

 

But 1 thing I still didn't manage to comprehend - Why don't they hire more manpower so they can finish their projects a bit quicker??? There are thousands and thousands of talented and experienced 3D modelers, texture artists, software developers and so on. IMHO they look like they need some help to get things done faster. Their market is a very impatient market.

 

I'm sure there are even people who would work on a volunteer or contract basis to get their names out there...

[Feuerfalke]

actually I can think of a few flight sims that do trees right...

 

EE2

EECH (Modded) (IIRC)

Comanche 3 and 4

Longbow (IIRC)

 

just about every heli sim out there but this has collidable trees....

 

the fact that trees are just shaders and not real just kills the low level combat for me.... I can't use trees properly, so why bother....

 

Longbow had no trees at all.

Comanche 3 / 4 was rather a great looking helo-game than a simulation.

EECH has large green blocks with a forestgreen texture. You had to aim very good for the few trees besides that.

EE2 had more trees, granted, but the engine couldn't deal with the additional load of calculating the collision boxes so trees and collision-boxes were not aligned.

 

Gunship! was one of the few games that had collideable vegetation (even massive forests, bushes, etc) and quite good AI, but it was hardly a simulation either.

 

 

@ ruprecht:

 

You always have to make compromises, when you're honest. If you want to make a 100% perfect project in ALL ASPECTS, you'd never sell anything because you'd never finish it. That's true for all sorts of business to my experience.

 

@ Innerloop:

 

And where do you draw the line? DCS is not opensource. It's a product released by a company and you have to draw a line in legal terms to ensure that your hard work will make enough money to feed your family. So you cannot just give away the source-code to the public and say "here you go, make something of it, but please don't sell it as yours".

You can open certain aspects, release tools how to make certain parts available for modding and creating addons, etc. and be open for ideas and valid concepts. But that is exactly what ED is doing, so you're running in open doors here, IMHO.

And hiring more people, hell, if ED would make money from DCS like Blizzard does from WoW, I bet the team would have 10 times more people working on it. ;)

Edited July 26, 2009 by Feuerfalke

[joey45]

But 1 thing I still didn't manage to comprehend - Why don't they hire more manpower so they can finish their projects a bit quicker??? There are thousands and thousands of talented and experienced 3D modelers, texture artists, software developers and so on. IMHO they look like they need some help to get things done faster. Their market is a very impatient market.

 

Money is everything.

[Napa]

Well.. I never said anything about releasing the source code. And I bet they are making a lot of money.

[Duke49th]

Well... to be honest im a little dissapointed.

The listed improvements to the ME are pretty limited and havent removed the labour intensive nature of making half decent missions. Theres been no attempt to improve ground ai behaviour (lets face it there is no ai behaviour unless the mission author goes to the extravagent lengths to manually 'script' it with thousands of triggers, even then many vital trigger logics are missing still ) Things like branching waypoints, waypoint actions, trigger rules such as group % alive, % dead, side % alive/dead, group sees enemy etc are all still missing and these are just the bare essentials to make the ME acceptable.

 

One can only hope the editor gets its own patch at some point, and soon, because it is the crux of sim content and replayability. And i won't even speak of the possibility of dynamic campaigns given the aenemic results of this patch.

 

:thumbup:

[Feuerfalke]

Well.. I never said anything about releasing the source code. And I bet they are making a lot of money.

 

I doubt anyone will become a millionaire by making flightsims. :noexpression:

[Mugatu]

See JET on the iPhone 1 million bucks in something like 3 months at $1.99 a pop.

 

I doubt anyone will become a millionaire by making flightsims. :noexpression:

[senn]

pointing out the obvious, but a game on a fone, with a touch screen + axis sensors hardly seems like a SIMULATOR.....

 

sims of just about any kind will always be a niche market...

[GGTharos]

I'm sure you all knew that you can't really have two people working on the same piece of code at the same time.

 

Highly impractical.

 

I'm sure there are even people who would work on a volunteer or contract basis to get their names out there...

[Feuerfalke]

See JET on the iPhone 1 million bucks in something like 3 months at $1.99 a pop.

 

Of course, you can also compare the millions of matchbox-cars to the number of e.g. Ferrari sold. But how much sense does that make?

 

The question is always how much time and effort you have to spend to develop and produce a product and how many customers you have. Jet on the iPhone as well as Matchbox have a LOT of customers and it takes little effort to produce and distribute it.

 

To develop a complex product like a hardcore simulation like DCS takes a lot more, though, as well as selling it on a niche market.

 

Additionally on most products sold, the price can be chosen more or less freely, but that's quite different on the gaming market. Think about Ferrari being forced to sell all their products at the price of a Volkswagen.