I thought the same thing, too. Really the only difference between the 50/52 is the 2 seat cockpit, flir ball, new avionics, stuff like that. Same weapons, same engines, same airframe, all that. Should be a breeze to model... ah who knows.

Really? I would think that since they are basically the same gen, they'd be either both classified or both open.

If they had to do a two-seater please let it be the Apache!

They have the Apache planned for sure, but its the A model sadly.

Where did you read this? Or is this more wild speculation?

A kid can find the entire manual in PDF on Google in 3 minutes but lets not focus on that subject.

Sadly, Combat Helo will also not go very in-depth on the avionics of the AH-64D both because of time issues and because of the book of forbidden knowledge. At least, that is what Flexman stated earlier.

Honestly I prefer to have a sim that have "detailed" and immersive gameplay features such as dynamic campaigns than being "100%" in-depth on the avionics and flight mode department (like the DCS sims are). To me a sim with immersive gameplay coupled with and good avionics and flight model is the perfect balance for a sim.
I just wish that Black Shark would have a dynamic campaign. The dynamic campaign feature alone is what makes for Combat-Helo the most anticipated sim off all for me!

The Goal for the DC is to build iteratively toward it, as far as I can tell. Re-read the FC3 announcement carefully.

Nate

2- Flaming Cliffs 3. This will be a paid-for update to the Flaming Cliffs series and brings it to the same world, mission editor, AI, units, etc. as A-10C and Black Shark 2. We plan to include several upgrades to the aircraft, a resource management system, and several other new features. This will also make Flaming Cliffs online compatible with A-10C and Black Shark 2. Pricing will depend on what new features are included.

A matter of taste.

ED are making inroads to a DC. Someone mentioned the exact same thing on the DCS Future Projects thread and the response from Nate was -

and if we read the FC3 update, it's not much but -



Cryptic but at least we got official word from Nate that they're working towards it.

I admit I daydream a lot about what DCS Black Shark would be like with EECH's campaign system....

Sure it is. But judging by the ever less and less combat flight sim players/customers specially compared to the highly sucessfull 90's combat fligth sims (where most were based on immersive gameplay such as dynamic campaigns/careers instead of extremelly high fidelity flight and damage models) I would say that the vast majority of combat flight sim players or potential players may have a more similar taste as mine than as yours
Therefore it's clear and cristal that the "extremelly high fidelity flight and damage models without paying attention to dynamic and/or immersive campaigns and scenarios" aproach is simply not working but if the devs still want to keep shooting themselfs on the foot, so be it...

A truly "realistic" DC would be no more than what we got in Il-2...the same missions over and over until an objective is achieved, followed by a new mission that is then done over and over until the next, and so on. You wouldn't affect the war, you wouldn't even be responsible (alone) for the objectives. You could win the war after getting shot down on day 1 because, well, lots of wars were won after people died on day 1. No one wants that, we want our mission results to affect the course of the war so that success will win the war and failure will lose it. That's not realistic at all for a single pilot to matter like that, but it's a concession because it's a game.

The problem with scripted campaigns is replayability. No one denies a scripted one is better the first time you play it because you can put all these nuances and triggers and events and such. But how many times are you going to play the same missions? What good is putting all this work into missions that people won't want to play more than twice, especially if you make them tough so that multiple attempts are needed to get past each one? A DC removes that issue, you set initial conditions and then it moves on from there. The best DCs had both. Longbow 2 had a DC with scripted missions that would appear when certain conditions in the campaign were met to "move the war forward."

The answer is a campaign that is both dynamic and scripted, the problem is sims like Il-2 and F4 are a little TOO dynamic while ED's and some others in the past were TOO scripted. ED has been "descripting" theirs with time, making it better, but it's still not there yet.



The Jedi Master

The answer is a campaign that is both dynamic and scripted, the problem is sims like Il-2 and F4 are a little TOO dynamic while ED's and some others in the past were TOO scripted. ED has been "descripting" theirs with time, making it better, but it's still not there yet.

I always wanted a Ka-29/Ka-50 hunter killer team, with the AI Ka-29 acting as a FAC and designating targets (as actually used). IMHO, this would've been a great addition to BS2 (and a way to incorporate the JTAC features).

So they keep shooting themselves in the foot eh? You'd think they would have learnt the first time with the poor sales of BS/A-10 and that they're going under. Oh wait... they're still going strong and not only that we're getting our fast jet and a 'legendary aircraft' together with a new graphics engine and more goodness for LOMAC. Yup, they shot themselves in the foot so bad they had to speed up to a run development wise.

The reason why ED is "going strong" like you said is simple: Military contracts!

That's why I think that ED doesn't have any interest in DC, DC don't have much use for military contracts and the civilian market (us, sim players) seems only to serve the purpose for ED to earn a little more extra cash (ED's secondary market). I have my doubts that if it weren't for the cash that ED receives from military contracts that this current ED's model of business would work.