Well, that fault lies with ED and not with 3rd party devs, right?

^Thanks, Exactly what I meant,

No Different than the DCS Mods that Use New External Models and the F-15C, A-10C, MiG-29, or Su-2x Avionics to avoid having to code their own Systems.

As someone who hasn't bought a used car since 1993, I can tell you that when I'm shopping for a car to replace the one I'm ready to dump, I NEVER look at preowned cars. Doesn't matter if it's low mileage. Doesn't matter if it's a rare car now out of production. As far as I'm concerned, it's a lateral move from what I have, it's not sufficient as a replacement. No used car is competition.

In the same vein, BMS is a used sim. EECH is a used sim. Unlike used cars, however, I actually used them. I played hundreds of hours of F4 and EECH over the last 15 years, but I freely admit it was almost all in the first 5 years after release. Once F4AF came out, I played that for about 100+ hrs and never went back to F4. Once LP whimpered and shriveled up and died, I lost interest. I tried playing the mods, but it felt like more of the same. Someone had repainted and reupholstered the used cars I'd had for years, but they were still the same cars.

DCS is a new sim. It has used elements to it, like keeping the tires from the old car until you can get new ones, but it's still new. I'm not saying it's the best new car I've ever had, in fact I'm very frustrated with it quite often, but it's still a new sim and not a used one.

As such, DCS' competition is Il-2:BoS/BoM, FSX/P3D, and ROF. SF2 for a while was competition at the casual level, but it's done. ROF is likely done as well, although not enough time has passed to be certain. I've never said "I'm not going to get Arma 3, I'll just replay OFP again" or "I'm not liking the way this new Doom game looks, I'm going to reinstall Doom 2 and play that again instead." I've played those old ones to death, they don't compete with the new ones.

I don't know how I can be any clearer. Maybe you're someone who happily buys used cars in order to get a better one than you could afford new, but I'd always a pick new cheaper car over a used more expensive one for the same money. A $40k car new vs an $80k car used that's going for $40k? Give me new!
Likewise while I can fly EECH and BMS for free, I prefer to fly BoS and DCS because I have so much less time in them that they don't feel old hat from the second I boot them up. To me there is no competition.





The Jedi Master

While I see your point...there are over 25,000 people that would disagree with you going by the BMS website. Many would rather have a highly refined fast mover sim, than one that has a bunch of mis-matched aircraft thrown together with equally mis-matched ground units set in equally mis-matched theaters in a constant state of Alpha.

If you want a complete sim with a realistic battlefield and all the radio traffic, AI flights, ground units, immersive campaign etc...DCS can't compete with BMS IMO. "New" and shiny doesn't always mean better.

To each his own.

You have to wonder then what does DCS offer that BMS doesn't? It would seem that DCS does in fact have quite active competition, despite the oft repeated mantra that it only exists because there is no competition for it.

Nate

It has prettier graphics, helos, and some useless WW2 planes. And that's about it. There's no competition in the sense that there's no other commercial, combat focused, study-level flight sim under development ATM.

So because BMS is not commercial, that invalidates its ongoing development? It can't be considered competition because it isn't sold?

In every other respect it seems to be direct competition. And, according to this thread, ahead of DCS in most respects, especially on price.

Nate

BMS Single Handily keeps Falcon 4.0 Selling, So it's Commercial By I.P. Relationship to Falcon 4.




A more Diverse Aircraft Selection.



I have nothing against BMS or Falcon 4, or 3, or AT, I've Flown all of the old ones, and Still fly BMS, as there is no F-16 or MRF in DCS at the moment.

As soon as F-18C comes out that will change a lil, The F-16 is by far my favorite USAF Jet though.

+1 Skate! Excited for the F-18C to be released and hoping for an F-16 in the future.

Agree, cant see how it isn't competition, and JM would if he had actually used the modern Benchmark Sims version.

OMG, I think I'll have to agree with you there!!



Just because you push the throttle forward and the plane goes up in the air, doesn't mean all aircraft are the same. I cannot see how the BMS team can re-skin the F-16 into an F-18 and not immediately get flak from the BMS community. There have been so many arguments about IFF and Link-16 that I cannot see the community "overlooking" a re-skinned F-16/F-18. Also, the F-18 has 4 MFDs whereas the F-16 only has 2. Sure, an MFD is an MFD, but I can only imagine what they needed to do to add 2 more MFDs to the code. And what about the Harrier? If you think that's just a "tweaked" flight model, then all cars today are just "tweaked" 4-wheel chariots.

Is the F-15C radar code really different from the Su-2x code? Or does it just have different values? Is the flight model for the F-15C really built from the ground up and totally different from the Su-2x flight model? Or does it just have different values? I would think all aircraft would have a common set of parameters, things like weight, max AoA, max airspeed, stall speed, etc. If you think one aircraft has max AoA = 15 and another aircraft has max AoA = 12 (just throwing numbers around as an example) and the two aircraft is the same with one just having a "tweaked" flight model, then all aircraft in FSX are just "tweaked" Cessnas.

I will admit I've not delved "under the hood" of BMS so much and have not even taken the other aircraft up for a spin so I can't really comment, but I'll ask a question over there to see if I can learn more.





What makes you think BMS is a pre-owned car? Why not look at it like a 2016 Mustang? Sure, you might've driven a 1969 Mustang and loved it, but I wouldn't call the 2016 Mustang "pre-owned" just because it has an older brother of the same name.

I see where you're getting at here. I too like the look and smell of new. However, I bought a new car called DCS and also a new (or used) car called BMS. DCS was expensive and I had to pay extra for cruise control and chrome trim. BMS was cheaper and came with all extras as standard. DCS was exciting at first, but later showed it's flaws.... it's a pain going from 2nd to 3rd gear and each tune up means I need to re-adjust my steering column, my seat distance, back rest angle, and so on. BMS was also exciting at first, and so far is showing less flaws than DCS. Fuel economy is actually better, and tune ups doesn't necessarily mean having to adjust my seat/wheel to get my ideal driving position back.

$40K car new vs. $80K used car that is going for $40K? I'm with you! Give me new! But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about a $40 "new" DCS A-10C (I'm using that as it's the cheapest module) vs. a $10.40 "new" BMS 4.33.1. Your "new" DCS A-10C only comes with the Warthog, and whatever free aircraft is included in DCS World. You also only have the Black Sea map. My "new" BMS 4.33.1 comes with the F-16, F-18, Harrier, and other aircraft as well as the Korea, Balkans, Israel, and other maps.

So do I want to buy a "new" car at $40 that only comes in basic trim? Or do I want to buy a "new/used" car at $10.40 that comes with a few bells and whistles?

You played F4, then played F4AF and never went back to F4 because you say F4AF is better. F4AF doesn't hold a candle to BMS now; it's not a fair fight. The even scarier thing is that it has so much depth that an independently-modded game from 15+ year old code has left a professionally-produced game eating dust.

You are indeed correct. There is no competition. You just have it the other way around. Once you have 100+ hours in DCS Module A and another 100+ hours in DCS Module B and another 100+ hours in DCS Module C, you might start to wonder how come some people have 1,000+ hours in just one other simulation.





If you want awesome screenshots or sweet YouTube videos of beautiful aircraft, DCS will win hands down. If you want sweaty palms because you've just been jumped by a flight of 4, if you want to be hoarse from shouting "AWACS, DECLARE!!!" because you don't want to shoot down a friendly but there's a bad guy out there, if you want to come home from a "mission failure" as you failed to bomb that nuclear plant because you had to drop ordnance to help out in a dogfight, if you don't mind that mission fail because you need a minute or two to calm down because you just nursed your frail F-16 into the alternate airfield, well, as you said, BMS is free. Give it a try.





A lot of things... as a game: fast-moving multirole aircraft. Quite a few of them now with 4.33.1. Lots of different theatres. Assets that can both help and threaten the player. Dynamic campaign where curveballs can actually be seen as a bonus.

As a sim: updates bring new things, and brings more new stuff than breaking old stuff. No promises of delivery, better dev respect from the community, and a clearer focus on what they're doing and what they plan to do.

I will say that DCS has a lot of promise, yes. A lot of potential, yes. But a pedal bicycle will still beat a Ferari in a drag race since the car driver doesn't seem to have a clue as to how to operate his machine. The potential is there. The sad thing is that at the rate we're going.... I may be close to retirement age before any of that potential will finally be brought forth.

Things will change... heck, I'd add on the F-14 there as well! However, the ability to keep people in the sim will be the next issue. Sure, people will come back to try out the new aircraft, but will they find enough in DCS at that time to stay? Will they find enough in DCS at that time for it to be a competition between BMS for a simmer's precious free time?

Unfortunately, BMS already has an F-18 so it cannot be avoided to be compared to that one. I hope DCS does the aircraft justice, but even then, it'll have it's other issues to work out.

I think you may have read my question backwards

Nate

True, Troll, thanks! The rest of it was in response to the original question, not for you

Nate, indeed I did!! LOL!

Ice,
I'll make this very easy for you. Take the DCS:A-10 up for a spin. Then take the BMS A-10 up for a spin. You will immediately see the lack of accuracy in the A-10 in BMS compared to the DCS version. Same with the MiG-21. At the end of the day, the jets other than the F-16 all share the limitations of sharing the F-16's avionics. Yes, they can have more MFD's, different flight modeling, etc., but the guts of the plane are still the F-16's.

That doesn't make then not fun to fly. On the contrary, there are plenty of folks like me that spend more of their time in the add-on jets than the F-16. But to give credit where it is due, while the BMS team has done a remarkable job with the add-on aircraft, they are not nearly of the caliber of a full-blown DCS module.

In my opinion, what DCS brings to the table that BMS cannot match is a full digital battlefield with combined fixed wing, rotary wing, and ground operations. Really ARMA 3 is the only competitor in this category, but you know the limitations you have with ARMA.

The potential is mind-boggling. ED could really corner the market if they could fully realize the capabilities of the software they have. What I mean is that the idea is sound, but the parts lack cohesiveness. And it's not very fun as a "game" but that's another discussion which we've beat to death before.

At what point is something considered "a whole new item" vs. "a re-skin"?


How exactly does DCS do that?


True! Very big potential, very poor execution.

@At what point is something considered "a whole new item" vs. "a re-skin"?

I think it depends on whether people think it(re-using) is fake like when ICP operation in other plane is exact same as F-16's.

You can have Hueys or Mi-8s fly to a forward base, pick up troops, then fly to an enemy-held city for an air assault. Ka-50s provide escort and AA defense. A-10s provide CAS. Friendly ground troops act as JTACs, designating targets with laser or smoke. Infantry advances and fights enemy infantry, mortars fire at spotted enemy concentrations, stinger teams provide AA defense, Medevac script for downed airmen etc...

I have lots of fun in such coop missions with DCS.

Wouldn't the KA-50/Mi-8 be on the "other side"? See, that was our problem the last time my friends and I played DCS... there was no way to "integrate" the KA-50 and the A-10C in the battlefield, outside of the A-10C doing a "talk on" for the KA-50 pilot. Can DCS do this now? Is this now available for DCS?

How has CA improved over the last 3-4 years? Is it still ARMA-lite?

How difficult is it to script such a mission?

Call DCS a sim or a game... it doesn't bother me what you call it. I still have lots of fun with DCS. Because it doesn't float any one person's boat for reason X, Y, or Z doesn't mean it is utterly worthless for everyone or even a majority. It just so happens that DCS is the closest PC combat flight sim to what I would like to have. FSX with TacPack doesn't cut it for me. Falcon 4 doesn't cut it for me. Jane's F/A-18 doesn't cut it for me. I still like the Strike Fighters series, but I am having a lot more fun with DCS since the P-51D, UH-1, Mi-8, F-86, MiG-15, MiG-21, Bf109, and Fw190 have been released. There is enough variety in every aspect for me to never get bored.

As far as the original topic of the post: I have never enjoyed campaigns. It doesn't matter whether it is scripted or dynamic or something in between, campaigns are boring for me. It doesn't bother me that other people love campaigns. Nor does it bother me that someone who spends time making campaigns wants to get paid for it. If aircraft modules and/or terrain don't come with campaigns at all, no skin off my back. If a Korea, Vietnam, or Israel terrain/campaign ever gets released, I might try it out. But I have all of those in the SF series games and rarely played them.

How can anyone come to the conclusion that selling campaigns has become the "focus" of ED? Clearly, DCS 2/NTTR has consumed significant game engine development resources. If we can take ED at its word, it has also been simultaneously making progress on the F/A-18, Normandy map, WW2 fighters, etc. All of the third party developers seem to be focused on various aircraft (and in some cases terrain and possibly campaigns/missions to go with them).

You can argue all day about the lack of direction of EDs development and the pace of progress, but DCS has made tremendous progress since I first bought LOMAC. As I have little interest in ground attack or modern fire-and-forget air-to-air weapons, the addition of WW2 and Cold War era aircraft is what really got me to commit to DCS World. Not FC3. NOt the A-10 or Ka-50.

Since whether something is "a good game" or "worth playing" is extremely subjective, most of the above opinions about DCS (and they are just that, not facts) need to be qualified with "not a good game for me" or "not worth playing for me" etc. If liking something that you don't like makes me a "fanboi", then feel free to label me as such for disagreeing with you. But its not like I am blindly loyal to DCS -- I own just about every other sim that covers my interests. It is just that DCS has finally reached a point where it is the best air combat sim / game currently available FOR ME.