Quality Standard for DCS World

[karambiatos]

I simply cannot believe anyone would say click able cockpits over AFM, just go back to FC2 and fly the a-10 with the SFM see how that is.

[outlawal2]

I simply cannot believe anyone would say click able cockpits over AFM, just go back to FC2 and fly the a-10 with the SFM see how that is.

 

 

THIS! :thumbup:

 

 

The AFM is the most important aspect as it makes the aircraft.. THE AIRCRAFT.

I love the clickable cockpit as well, but the entire POINT of a DCS level aircraft is realism... So the AFM is required..

 

And as someone mentioned elsewhere... Actually BOTH are required, but to call a module without the AFM DCS level.. Is absurd.

[cichlidfan]

Apparently we have people who like to fly and people who like to click switches.

 

For my money, I would rather fly.

[Dr. Yes]

The opposite is true.

A good AFM gives "instant gratification".

Detailed systems modeling takes effort to enjoy.

Guess which is the bigger market. ;)

 

Sorry to burst your bubble, but most of the FPS / Arma types wouldn't even realize the difference. Hell, most Arma types think Battlefield has realistic heli's (shudder :cry:). Well, actually they probably do compared to Arma.

Edited January 17, 2014 by Dr. Yes

[Dr. Yes]

I simply cannot believe anyone would say click able cockpits over AFM, just go back to FC2 and fly the a-10 with the SFM see how that is.

 

Nah, FC2 has no clickable cockpit, bad graphics, and little of a world. SFM would be the least of my worries.

[cichlidfan]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but most of the FPS / Arma types wouldn't even realize the difference. Hell, most Arma types think Battlefield has realistic heli's (shudder :cry:).

 

Except those people don't want a flight sim in the first place. They want an airborne gunnery platform and could care less whether it flies like a plane or a UFO.

[Dr. Yes]

Except those people don't want a flight sim in the first place.

 

Actually, a lot of my type do. Were just stuck. Just like here. Its flight sim or its FPS. No one has ever done a good "in between" so far. Thats where people like me are stuck. Believe me, I know people who did their best to try and mod it in to games like Crysis, but the companies will never cooperate by giving us access to the functions we need, and in the end, it always fails. There's one guy named Peral trying to mod in a clickable cockpit into Arma 3 for the A-10C. It looks nice so far, but I think he's going to hit a brick wall though when he tries to put in the CCRP / CCIP. I doubt if BI will allow him access to the needed engine functions.

 

So now, I'm looking at games like Outerra and Novae engine and hoping someone will build aircraft with full clickable cockpits ( thats the immersion for me ) and systems with at least SFM ( because I doubt most of the other customers for it would care that much ). Everything in these "worlds" seems to be going towards sci-fi now. I hope I can get them interested in 21st century ground war. Maybe some third party developers will get interested in it. There are a lot of us who are interested in a hybrid realtic FPS / realistic Flight sim. Unfortunately, the forum boards are always ruled by a few who either pure FPS or Pure flight sim, and we get banned for just talking about it.

[Dr. Yes]

Apparently we have people who like to fly and people who like to click switches.

 

For my money, I would rather fly.

 

I think its more like people who want more world / battlefield to fly in, and people who mostly just want to fly ( the people who enjoy 20 to 30 minute flights out to the battle ). Most people I talk to don't like more than 3 to 4 minutes to get to the battle.

[EtherealN]

Okey Dr. Yes. Let me put it like this.

 

I fly aircraft IRL.

Lock On was fun.

FC1 was way cool. How so? Su-25 AFM. That turned it from a wargame to a flight simulation. ;)

 

SFM aircraft are realistic enough to do the war thing. When it comes to planes like A-10C, sorry, the fact that you press the exact right buttons in the exact right order isn't that big a deal. (But it certainly is a lot of fun during the learning experience, sure.) But as far as fighting in the A-10C, assuming you're doing it anywhere close to the correct way, you are barely ever touching that cockpit anyway. You're using the HOTAS. Same as you did after mapping it in FC2. You want a "clickable" cockpit while the armed forces of the entire planet are doing their darndest to make sure their pilots never have to touch a switch? ;)

 

However, in FC2, you did not have that awesome flight model that truly put your flying skills to the test.

 

By instant gratification, you need to understand this: it is a huge difference between getting up in an SFM and getting up in an AFM. You feel it right away. And while the SFM planes weren't bad (their flight models got most things right in pure numbers), they did not capture that flying sensation, which is what INSTANTLY hooked me to ED products after FC1 was released.

 

I flew Lock On on review code way back when, it was good, but it was "another simulator". Then I got FC1 (privately) a while later and the rest is history. ;) (A history largely spent flying Su-25, incidentally... :P )

 

The key thing however here is that it was stated AS FACT that people don't care about AFM's compared to systems. I challenge this. And as evidence I give you the fact that Eagle Dynamics is spending a lot of money giving AFMs to the FC3 aircraft, in spite of all the trouble it means to have the FC3 product in the first place given the whole Lock On thing. Seriously, think about that. Would ED do that if people didn't care? The one company in this market that actually managed to stay alive goes completely wrong about what people want?

 

oookey. :)

Edited January 17, 2014 by EtherealN

[cichlidfan]

I think its more like people who want more world / battlefield to fly in, and people who mostly just want to fly ( the people who enjoy 20 to 30 minute flights out to the battle ). Most people I talk to don't like more than 3 to 4 minutes to get to the battle.

 

That first part has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion at hand. We are talking about what are the important factors in a DCS level aircraft, AFM or click-able cockpit.

 

As to the second part, which also has nothing to do with the discussion at hand, then where is the 'simulation'. Battles rarely occur right next to the airfield you are taking off from.

[EtherealN]

No one has ever done a good "in between" so far.

 

I invite you to check out how I was previously in this thread pointing out speicifcally that you cannot make a dipolar distinction because there are so many in-betweens.

 

As for an in-between: yes, it has been done.

 

Falcon 4: SFM with advanced avionics modeling. Developer is bankrupt and dead.

FC1: introduced AFM but (at that time) still simplified avionics modeling. Developer is still alive.

 

;)

[Dr. Yes]

Falcon 4 bankrupt. That's because they failed to put in a battlefield style ground war, and the graphics were "meh". Stick figures. I could say it failed because it was "only" a flight sim. The campaign though was awesome. But that was a long way back ( I used to fly in Falcon 3 + 4 ). My dream ( and that of some others ) is DCS + Steel Beasts ( armored vehicles with clickable cockpits, real systems ) + Crysis Wars Infantry and landscape. And even Crysis Wars landscape was hard to ambush with in a helicopter. Just have to figure out what absolutely has to use the CPU, and then try to push everything else we can to the GPUs.

 

And since some people are saying this went off topic, I'll leave it at that.

Edited January 17, 2014 by Dr. Yes

[WildBillKelsoe]

he wants hi-fi products labelled DCS to avoid confusion.

[lunaticfringe]

So lemme get this straight: you want clicky-cockpit realism foisted as an FPS, but can't stand the realism of flight modeling. Ie, all of the fluff, but with none of the long term payoff outside of a kill ranking.

 

Doesn't work. The development cost is too high. Nobody cares to design, animate, and code systems across umpteen vehicles at a high level of accuracy when the payoff is Quake III. I can get to the money much more easily by building a Battlefield or a Modern Warfare. Conversely, you can operate in a smaller product segment by building those systems accurately to a high level, attaching them to an accurate model of their usage, and tapping into that player base. You can also get away with charging a premium for access to that hardware; whereas Battlefield or ARMA is a $60 buy-in with $30 upgrades across three expansions, I can drop a free engine and $50 "expansions" (fully modeled vehicles) forever.

 

But play the middle ground? Truly, how many are going to bother with that? The only thing that's ever really tried coming close on a gaming front was *maybe* MW Living Legends (sans clicky, but had dozens of keystrokes), and that had how many players, max?

[karambiatos]

Falcon 4 bankrupt. That's because they failed to put in a battlefield style ground war, and the graphics were "meh". Stick figures. I could say it failed because it was "only" a flight sim. The campaign though was awesome. But that was a long way back ( I used to fly in Falcon 3 + 4 ). My dream ( and that of some others ) is DCS + Steel Beasts ( armored vehicles with clickable cockpits, real systems ) + Crysis Wars Infantry and landscape. And even Crysis Wars landscape was hard to ambush with in a helicopter.

nanosuits?

and its hard to ambush in crrysis not because of the landscape but because the MP maps are 2x2m^2

 

Just have to figure out what absolutely has to use the CPU, and then try to push everything else we can to the GPUs.

ok...

 

 

also DCS A-10C before world was quite a success ant that was this horrible "only" a flight sim thing.

Edited January 17, 2014 by karambiatos

[Bluedrake42]

let me break it down.

 

If you flew an SFM aircraft with a fully modeled clickable cockpit, you would be able to fly that aircraft in real life (but I wouldn't try and pull any air stunts)

 

If you flew an AFM aircraft without a fully modeled clickable cockpit you wouldn't be able to fly it in real life.

 

I don't know about the rest of you, but I get off on learning how to turn on and fly an A10C just like you would in real life. Real jet pilots don't press "G" to bring their gear up, or "R" to turn on the radar.

 

And when I say "clickable cockpit" I'm not saying I want a bunch of useless switches to tinker with, I want to know that if you were to sit me in a real life counterpart, I could at least turn the damn thing on.

 

How can you possibly say AFM is more important than an interactive cockpit.

[cichlidfan]

...

 

How can you possibly say AFM is more important than an interactive cockpit.

 

Because the AFM is what makes the aircraft act like a real aircraft in all, or nearly all, aspects of flight and performance.

Edited January 17, 2014 by cichlidfan

[blackbelter]

It's all individual-specific, whether clickable cockpit or AFM is more important. No point arguing, since you can never convince each other.

 

Things are complicated. A clear line can rarely be drawn. Placing each module into either DCS or FC category, with no gray space in-between? All that achieves is more confusion for some people. People who follow the topic in the forum, or read the product description in detail, will not be confused. The rest will be anyway.

Edited January 17, 2014 by blackbelter

[lunaticfringe]

If you flew an SFM aircraft with a fully modeled clickable cockpit, you would be able to fly that aircraft in real life

 

No, you wouldn't. You might like to think you could, but you couldn't. Mousing around a simulated cockpit during freeplay on a desktop simulation and getting behind the controls of a military aircraft are two entirely different sets of skills developed with completely different methods and processes.

 

And you especially wouldn't fly the aircraft having learned the edges with a low end model of the most dangerous regimes: takeoff, landing, and stall onset. The first thing you would successfully do is over or under-rotate the aircraft, and that'd end your day in the saddle faster than you could reach for your mouse and pull the bang seat actuator.

 

I don't know about the rest of you, but I get off on learning how to turn on and fly an A10C just like you would in real life. Real jet pilots don't press "G" to bring their gear up, or "R" to turn on the radar.

 

They don't reach down for a mouse, tap a coolie hat to change the position of their gaze, then left click an icon, either. They may reach down and tag a switch here or there, but everything else is hands on stick, throttle, and rudder. Subsequently, you're getting off on nothing better than anyone else is. And while how you play the piccolo may define the success rate of the sorties you fly, your competency- every single bit of it, is based on how well you handle the aircraft.

 

You think you could competently fly wing for an F-15 or a Su-27 driver, having practiced with SFM? Fat chance. You won't be capable of it with AFM, either. But you will have an infinitely better measure of the aircraft's raw performance, and what it takes to get it out to the mission area, perform, and rejoin the airfield, because you'll have been forced to deal with everything the better model can throw at you. You may not even make contact with an enemy to engage, but you'll for damn sure have put the aircraft through its paces.

 

And that's removing naval operations from the calculus which disproves your contention, because I'm in the mood to be nice.

[karambiatos]

 

I don't know about the rest of you, but I get off on learning how to turn on and fly an A10C just like you would in real life. Real jet pilots don't press "G" to bring their gear up, or "R" to turn on the radar.

 

I know one thing theres no way in hell id pay 50 dollars for a SFM ever, i dont care if the entirety of the aircrafts software has been modeled, and why is that?

Because when i have an uneven weapons load i wont feel the difference, when i do a hard yaw itll just yaw and not put the aircraft in a spin, when i pull hard on my stick itll just go up, and not start losing control, these things make the aircraft so much enjoyable to fly, that and the fact that SFM doesnt give you the ability to come back home on one wing or half your tail missing.

 

The funny thing is, eventually i stop using the main functions in a clickable cockpit and just bind them to the keyboard, for example in the Ka-50 i hardly ever press a switch, only the rotaries for the Radar altimeter, and one rotary for the arbis are used, and thats about it, everything else is bound to the joystick or a switch, and after start up, i hardly ever use the clickability, simply because its cumbersome to reach for your mouse and do click stuff, which is the main reason people make cockpits.

 

TLDR: if i wanted crappy flying physics and click able cockpits id play FSX.

Edited January 17, 2014 by karambiatos

[danilop]

What's more important to me? AFM or detailed avionics / clickable everything?

 

AFM definitely. It's foundation.

 

It needs to be rock solid and as realistic as possible. Now, clickable stuff and detailed avionics is like icing on the cake (like graphics, immersion, sound ...) - nice and great to have, but if flight model is sub-par, everything else falls apart in an instant. It's a flight simulator, after all. That's the reason I cannot enjoy flying fast FC3 movers anymore - it feels like a joke after steady DCS AFM diet. So I'm looking forward to ED's effort to eradicate SFM from FC franchise.

 

Of course, having cake and eating it too is da best - like A10c, MiG21bis and helis- we just have to accept that it takes loooong time to have it all.

Edited January 17, 2014 by danilop

[Frostie]

let me break it down.

 

If you flew an SFM aircraft with a fully modeled clickable cockpit, you would be able to fly that aircraft in real life (but I wouldn't try and pull any air stunts)

 

If you flew an AFM aircraft without a fully modeled clickable cockpit you wouldn't be able to fly it in real life.

 

I don't know about the rest of you, but I get off on learning how to turn on and fly an A10C just like you would in real life. Real jet pilots don't press "G" to bring their gear up, or "R" to turn on the radar.

 

And when I say "clickable cockpit" I'm not saying I want a bunch of useless switches to tinker with, I want to know that if you were to sit me in a real life counterpart, I could at least turn the damn thing on.

 

How can you possibly say AFM is more important than an interactive cockpit.

 

AFM teaches you how to do one of the most critical aspects of flying, that is landing. With just SFM and a fully clickable pit the furthest you should expect to go is starting her up (which can be learnt from a manual, just like a dishwasher), but don't you dare touch that throttle.

 

AFM and no clickable pit is default DCS world with the Su25T, how can you rebrand this.

 

And regarding your comment about FC3 and an ideal world, surely in an ideal world FC3 would have a fully clickkable pit and AFM for all rather than being excluded all together. Seems to me you're just another FC hater.

[lunaticfringe]

DCS Acronym.

 

Out: Digital Combat Simulator

New Hotness: Dishwasher Control Simulation

 

:D

[kontiuka]

I wouldn't consider myself a die-hard by any definition and before I tried the Su-25T, I was quite happy with the SFM. Now, I have little interest in flying anything with an SFM. It just feels lacking.

[Bluedrake42]

Whatever, I like interactive cockpits better. That's it, end of story. I'd rather know how to turn on a plane and then sit on the ramp looking like an idiot, than have someone else turn on the plane for me and fly like a pro.

 

Obviously I'd like both, its not like I hate AFM... but I'd choose IC given the choice.

 

It just comes down to a matter of opinion I guess, so if we could just stop the armchair commando bashing please... that'd be nice.

Edited January 17, 2014 by Bluedrake42