Many of those features aren't "military grade" either. In most mil applications there's an instructor/observer watching in real time that would just say "you hit a tree. you dead. try again." There's no need for automatic feedback and damage modeling like this. For missile impacts the instructor probably has a preset damage result (and probably triggered the SAM to fire). Damage, scoring, and AI are low priorities for most military training tools because the player is not interested in cheating or getting a high score. They want to learn and then apply those lessons to real life.

What makes a sim mil grade is that the physics, instrumentation, and weapon behaviors are real so they don't teach bad habits.

You'd be really REALLY surprised to see what's in a military grade flight simulator then.

Don't forget, your expectation based on personal preferences have nothing to do with reality of things.
So to speak.

Exactly what I meant. +1.

Thanks - I may well pop on one day.

I'm currently lame at them all. Mig-21 is getting my attention at the moment, but I've only done startup, taxi, take off and landing...no weapons as yet.

Oh, so when people call DCS a military grade simulator, they add "military grade" to explain why some things are outright badly made? I don't think that's the impression most people get.

I think you mixed the second part up. "What DCS currently does has nothing to do with the reality of things" would be more true to say of some things. E.g. the only instances of B-52s being hit by A-A missiles have seen them crash within seconds of a single hit. No plane on Earth that I know of has ever been recorded to survive more than a single MANPAD hit. I've not heard of any helicopter that's ever taken even one missile hit and kept on flying. And as far as I know, trees are nasty to even run into, let alone fly into

I consider DCS to be a very good game and sim in many aspects, but some are currently just badly made, to the extent where the overall experience can hardly be referred to as a simulation of reality. Ignoring those deficiencies is as bad as ignoring everything that's good about the game.

Scrim,
You were the first person to post in response to my OP. Maybe, if you really want to discuss this, you could be bothered to take the 3 minutes or so and read my OP. Then I think you might understand MY point, even if it's not everyone else's.

I think, to some extent, the flaws you identify in DCS prevent you from getting the big picture. I'm not saying you're wrong. Bugs are bugs. Missing features are missing features. I won't disagree with you that when you collide with a tree you should suffer damage from it. Or that vehicles should take proximity damage from weapons. And so on.

Rather than focus on the simulator's shortcomings, perhaps you can take some time to appreciate its features. That is sort of the point of the thread, and the OP. DCS is an extremely powerful tool. In the hands of the right people who know what they are doing, you can conduct training that is very close to real-life.

Most of us, though, are more like BillyReilly. I know I am. I want to play a game. I want to fight the war and have my missions make a difference in the virtual world. DCS falls short on this.

At any rate, I think if we were all entertained more by the whole DCS experience we'd be more likely to excuse bugs or missing features.

I'm arguing with you about this, and I said I wouldn't. But I'll provide a couple of brief examples to illustrate why your position is wrong.

On one occasion I took off in the simulator (this was 1999-2001 timeframe) to fly some instrument approaches at Kaneohe. We shot a few approaches and then dialed up Honolulu International and flew over there to shoot an ILS. I had the weather cranked down to like a 200' ceiling. We navigated onto the ILS, shot the approach and then when we broke out of the clouds....nothing. No lights, no airport, nothing. WTF? So we paused the sim, removed the weather, and would you believe that Honolulu International was completely missing? Barber's Point is in there. Kona is in there. But HNL was completely missing. I never figured out if it was a bug or missing feature. Nevertheless, despite this being a multi-million dollar simulator, the main airport in the Hawaiian Islands was not depicted on land...although in fairness the navaids were.

The other point, that happened on multiple occasions, is that you could crash the sim. Not crash as in plow into the ground, as in if you had too much data being fed into the sim at one time, an adversary submarine with too many buoys in the water and you dropped too many weapons or just added too much "stuff" at one time, the sim would crash just like a CTD on the computer. You'd have to pause what you were doing, reboot all the computers, and then 10 minutes later after a head call try to mentally get back into the moment when the system came back up. No #%&*$#.

************

On another point, I don't know if a better adversary simulator is currently available to U.S. fighter pilots than the DCS MiG-21 module. In my article, I found that back in the 70s when they used simulators to fight F-4s they would configure one of the F-4s with the MiG-21s flight model, but the pilot was still flying in his F-4 simulator. Now in 2014 I don't know how adversary aircraft are simulated for, say, and F/A-18 pilot. I "think" the way they used to do it is at an instructor console with a much lower fidelity generic cockpit through which the instructor could basically control an adversary aircraft. I don't know, though, whether because it's classified or simply doesn't exist, if there is a fully mocked up MiG-21/29/etc. simulator where an adversary simulator pilot can fly against a U.S. fighter.

Theoretically, then, we may actually exceed military capability to model adversary aircraft. Think about that.

See this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw2mEbppD6A

FMS or CT/IPS-E?


[P.S. If you are not comfortable with answering this on a public board, I'd understand that completely.]

We have two (S5) and one (S1). No probs.

I'm surprised...
You @ JIF? Or Neuburg/Donau?
I got the feeling we might have met.

Please read this...

Scrim, adding to what others have already written, one probably should point out that ED most likely did not put those flaws that you mention in there deliberately. These are not design features; rather, those are bugs...or concessions that were made due to technical problems.

Every software product has glitches and bugs; I suppose those in military grade simulators just get removed a lot quicker, though, because nation states do pay a lot more - and are more inclined to sue a developer - than your average Joe.

The biggest difference may be the input devices: using keyboard, mouse and monitor is not the same as having a "fully clickable" cockpit replica, not to mention something like a "Dome".

In response, I'd like to come back to this:



This is my fundamental disagreement. DCS being called a "military-grade simulator", as opposed to merely a game. But now it seems to surface that "military-grade" isn't an accolade, but rather an excuse for some rather large flaws, i.e. "well, in a military sim an instructor would say that you've crashed if you fly through trees, or got hit by an A-A missile. He'd also remove planes you hit if they don't go down after a missile hit". The issue is that if it takes a person standing behind you and actively manipulating the sim to make it realistic, you can't say that it's superior to a game in the commercial market.

In other words, I don't want a game, or a game that's excused from realism because it's compared to a military simulator. I want a realistic, commercial simulation that should be able to handle said aspects without a third party running a sort of "game master" mode. This is what DCS is labeled and sold like, not like a military grade sim (which it now seems is an excuse for lack of realism?*).


*Without stepping on anyone's toes or reviving the BS that was around a few months or so ago, that's honestly what I'm interpreting this as at this stage. If "military grade" isn't used as an accolade for the quality one considers DCS to have but as an excuse ("military simulators can be rather lousy") then I fail to see a reason for using that term in relation to DCS. It's labeled as a commercial sim, nothing else.

@Scrim:
It's just that your perception of the label "military grade simulator" isn't what the label means.
It's not a derogatory sentence. It's just that (probably) you have little idea of what a generic Training session in the military is, why they do some stuff and what's REALLY necessary and what not.

You don't want a Military grade simulator, you don't want a game- you want a better representation of a military aircraft than DCS. With some luck EDGE will solve many issues. Others probably not. But there's still fun aplenty to have.

EDIT: Usually "Military grade" is just the degree of fidelity of the main subject of the simulator. I don't really need to say more- but think about it, there's no need to simulate 100% of everything, every time, everywhere in the gaming area.

What you need is that the plane the trainee is in, responds as much as possible as the real one. That's the "military grade part".

Yes, but my gripe here is that "military grade" isn't what DCS is marketed as. If it means less than full blown realism (which I'm open to it meaning), then I struggle to see what bearing it has on DCS.

I use the "military grade" label to mean that you could use it to conduct real-world military training. To that end, the term I use in my article is "near military grade" and I would say that the "near" is important.

But DCS is very close to that level. With the ability to fly fully combined arms warfare online, it is very close to what the military does and, in some cases, perhaps exceeds what is capable in the actual military simulators. Frankly, I think that's a selling point and I'd put it in their marketing material!

I concede, though, that it is marketed as a "game" and, the "game" part of DCS is lacking.

What makes a sim a game anyway?

I was trying to figure out how to articulate it, but I talked myself around in a circle.

Had years of this with Strike Fighters - this is wrong blah blah - and you know what TK was 99% correct every time.

You are bringing up reality - however what is the reality - what is the scientific basis for your assumptions? Have you observed from afar the missiles seemingly hitting these objects?

Otherwise we have to assume you know the following:

The lethal range and aspect angles of the particular missile - considering nearly all are prox fuze and not HTK weapons.
The range each missile was from the objects when it exploded from very close observation.

Yep could be a bug (not noticed myself) however just because an explosion occurs nearby does not mean it detonated in range to do significant damage - if it detonates because of a decoy close by and out of range does not make a kill.


How is this programmed in DCS - no idea
So what are the lethal ranges for all the missiles? - no idea all classified

Weapons especially modern ones can only be approximations in any sims...........to many unknowns


Am yet to use a combat sim with colidable 3D trees - on the list of concerns - pretty low - if I fly though a tree and am being realistic about it I have to press Esc because I died.

Most PC simulators simulate where they can - they sometimes emulate where there is sufficient documentation and they include a game element for entertainment. This isn't to say that the game aspect doesn't include a lot of very realistic elements.

The user has to actively fly taxi, takeoff and land realistically if that is what they want.

LMAO….I like how they all go nuts yelling Allah Akbar and then when they see the chopper still flying it goes quiet and one guy tepidly says it. Idiots.

I agree with the OP.

I don't mind and even like hyper-realism, but if "military grade" means no real cohesion of assets and a very shallow single player experience, then I want the opposite. If that's a "game" then so be it.

There's a segment of people who like flying an F-86 around Crimea shooting at AI in random engagements. And there's nothing wrong with that. I'm just not that guy.