Paid upgrade for enhanced versions of ATC, Terrains and standard procedures

[TBarina]

I'd love to see ED and its partners offer a paid upgrade version of some modules for customers interested in funding the resolution of immersion-breaking issues or encouraging the introduction of new features.

A list of potential modules and a customer survey would be helpful.

Most of the upgrades would certainly be a success (ATC, Dynamic Campaigns, Terrain improvements).

Let's be clear. I'm not saying what's been done so far isn't good, of course. Excellent modules have been produced so far, and ED has delivered on all its promises over time and beyond (see F18, F16, A10, Wardbirds, the fantastic Supercarrier module, the weather system, etc.).

However, in my opinion, there are areas that need  a boost.

Edited Wednesday at 12:06 PM by TBarina

[upyr1]

I expect ED to shoot some of not all the ideas down. I'm going to go over each one.

First paid ATC- ATC should be part of DCS core this is the type of thing that would really cause problems online.

Improved terrain- most maps are already paid DLC. Wether or not people are willing to buy upgrades of stuff they already own comes down to cost and what they get. I could see a lot of interest in buying an expanded Pascific map that includes the Marianas (provided it won't melt your CPU) as well as an expanded Caucuses map using a set up like Afganistan where everyone gets access to a low detail map for online games. I could also see the same deal working for the Nevada map- make the expanded version the US South West which ideally would ideally include Fallon, Mirimar, and Holloman. If the developers could coordinate ED a massive Mid east map would be awesome. The idea for the mega mideast map would be ED would work on a very small strip around each map 

Dynamic campaign- I could see this going either way. I believe ED wants to make this part of DCS core, the main argument against doing it this way is I think it would have been done a lot sooner.  As long as you don't need the dynamic campaign to connect to a server with a dynamic campaign running I don't see any issues.

[TBarina]

I know that ED will eventually fix everything one day. I'm afraid the time will be too long to wait, though. At the moment lots of things spoil the flight immersion.

Consider some posts (for which nobody hasn't even answered for months or weeks):

- voice-over volume (for which is very difficult to find an accettable balance)

- wingman endlessly repeats radar contacts: this is terribly annoying. ED refuses to use  the Chump29's great job to reduce spam (BTW Chump29 doesn't support it any more) . Luckily I could modify my lua files and it works very well. But not everyone is capable of doing that and it must be manually reinstalled and updated every new releaes. Link here

- do you enjoy building missions? I do. But when I tried to build a nice mission for Normady 2.0 I came across big issues (bridges resting on tracks across the railroad tracks and ATC targeting the wrong IAF when returning to base in bad weather; see the Normandy 2.0 forum for details).

- The SINAI map also has some nasty issues (check out the dedicated forum).

- ATC for Supercarrier? Well, SC is a really good example of a paid add-on that improved this area, but it doesn't have a good ATC. Just a radio message.

 

Luckily, there are talented users who have built fantastic add-ons that were mostly ignored by ED.
Some very talented community users saved VAICOM after Hollywood_315 had to abandon development, giving the software away to the community. And they struggle to update it with every DCS change.

Also, check this out (in case you missed it). Here's what we would need for most maps:

I'm not saying that DCS is bad. But all these new terrains and aircrafts may end up to delay the fixing of previous bugs or the introduction of necessary features for years.
That's why I'd rather pay for a Supercarrier 2.0, some ATC boosters, etc.

 

Meanwhile, BMS continues to improve and perfects the ATC between releases.

Great movie of how BMS handles the pattern with multiple flights:

 

Edited 2 hours ago by TBarina