Having spent a few hours with Single Play Combined Arms, here is my take on this title from the Tanker's Point of view…
Interesting concept but there seems to me that a lot of work is still in order.

A. Lack of readable material. I am a complete newbie to the entire DCS lineup even though I own many of their titles. I just don’t spend time with them. With the aid of a few internet searches and SimHQ videos, the learning curve was overcome.

B. Can’t control CAS in single play. Read here that CAS control is for online play. Why even have the aircraft flying around in single play if they can't be utilized?

C. Environmental impacts on Line of Sight (trees and such) seems to have no effect on Line of Sight. I am watching AI battle it out in thick forests where the human player can’t see a target.

D. Simple First Person user interfaces with land vehicles. I am surprised that DCS has not implemented a more simulator feel for the land vehicles. DCS has spent a huge amount of resources to model their airframes, why not spend a little effort on the vehicle interfaces?

E. While the landscape is large, I am noticing trees and such floating. Granted this is a flight sim engine first but with some work maybe these smaller issues will be addressed.

F. Damage modeling? Can't tell if there is any at this time...

At this point... I give this a 2.5 out of 5 stars for offline game play.

B - You can call in AI airsupport using the radio menu when in vehicle. This has to added by the mission designer however.

C - A known and annoying issue

D - Baby steps. ED has stated that for this release CA was not intended to be a simulator

E - Hopefully the new Nevada terrain is better in the is respect.

F - It is modelled as cumulative hit points - however this is not shown on the model itself.

It is early days for CA as a concept - and for each person the focus seems to be different. For me I enjoy the RTS aspect of controlling the battlefield, and providing the required air support myself, more than driving around.

It would be no harm to post your findings on the official forum - feedback is welcome.

Nate

Well, Wags has said that since it is the first Beta version so much will change from here to release that it is not worth the time for them to document anything, CA will get a proper manual once it gets closer to release version.

As for the other points i think most of it will be improved on since it is in fact a true beta version of the game.

Agreed with the RTS aspect. Fly CAS and direct the ground troops yourself instead of relying on the mission designer to do so. Livens up the battlefield. Very excited to see where it goes from here.

Ah, so it's a lot like Arma in that respect. Arma DOES have damage visible, but most damage is hit points-based, albeit broken down into areas like "left track", "turret", "engine" etc. Things like penetration at a given angle and such AFAIK are NOT modeled there either, that's SB and some RTS area instead.



The Jedi Master

Wow, no posts in this forum since my last almost 6 weeks ago! I guess people are just waiting for this to get out of beta basically.




The Jedi Master

I think people are moving on- too many issues on too many platforms... small team, limited resources... ambitious ideas and the feeling I'm getting from the community is there isn't a lot of confidence the bigger issues (multiplayer anyway) are going to be resolved any time soon. Whether it's with the arcade game that is CA or other modules within DCS world.

For a concept like this to go stale that quickly... something is afoot.

Stale? It hasn't even left Beta.

Nate

I meant community interest in it has gone stale- not the concept.

Yeah you do have point there. I wonder what would it take to engage more interest in it?

Nate