Good post on Facebook about some of the new technologies developed for the F-18 and how 3rd parties can use them.

Thought I would share here, in the DCS part of Sim HQ, if that's OK?

Full cockpit shot


Post

Hmm, F16 anyone? yes we know, it wont have an awesome looking 1999 graphics campaign. But will have VR, perhaps at 8K.

Good for military training too? Cheaper I would think then some training with real aircraft, great selling point for boardroom discussions.

Chances are very good that it will be a broken mess. I'll wait until other suckers, er, customers review it.

Cool, I remember this effect modeled in Jane's F/A-18E Superhornet. Will look nice with DCS graphics though.

Darn, and I was going to buy it too.

I'm sure the campaign you do get will look great!

ED's in house modules tend to be fairly solid. A-10C and KA-50 were fairly good were they not?

I really want this (and that map!) but I think it will be far, far too complex for me. I'd pay $30 for a simplified avionics version easily though.

If it's not Cadet David

OMG!!! YESSSS!!!!

I'm so glad they're prioritizing vapor trails and making it realistic based on AoA and humidity! This is what we've been waiting for all this time!! This makes it a day-1 purchase for me, sod everything else! After all, that's what I'll be primarily doing in a COMBAT simulator while doing HARD maneuvers ---- checking if the vapor trails come up based on real life situations!

A-G radar implementation technology?? Pfftt!! Who wants to see that in a COMBAT simulator?? Vapor trails are where it's at, baby!! Everyone knows that the enemy simply surrenders once he sees my awesome, realistic vapor trails!

Can somebody remind me which parts of the cockpit were plastic and which parts were metal again? I need to brush up on my knowledge of cockpit component composition now..... after all, that's what we want in a COMBAT flight simulator!! Yay!

I'm sure it will have an air to ground radar but that is probably hard to show in a picture. These over the top sarcastic posts are getting fairly annoying. I know I complain about things to (Razbam M2000C module was incomplete, tutorials incomplete) but at least complain about a real issue. I'm sure if you're an expert in air to ground radar engineering or a Hornet pilot you can lecture us all when the module is released and those of us who can follow or care about the differences between the real thing and DCS will listen. I know for one, I won't be able to tell the difference between how it works in the real thing VS DCS and I am not sure if I'd care either way. And to be honest, I don't think a single person on this forum (or ED's) will have that kind of knowledge either. If I had to guess, there are zero Hornet pilots, technicians or radar engineers on these forums.

I'm pretty sure he is aware that the AG will be implemented (or at least has been announced......ED already promised things that has NEVER been done) but probably what he meant is that vapor effect is something to be added once you finished all the core features that really matter to a COMBAT flight sim since last time i checked DCS has a combat in its acronym. BTW, he didn't even said anything about the fidelity of the AG but only questioned where it is. That being said let's remind that there are even more core things to be fixed like one of the most important which is missile behavior and this one by itself is a HUGE LOL since DCS tried to convince us that their missile behavior were realistic and everything else was fake.... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA .... luckily only fanboys fell on that

So my question is what do you expect the artists to do? Sit around and do nothing? Get fired and then re-hired once the programmers finish a task? Really, I don't see visual effects having much if any burden on the other areas. I believe these new effects should also be better performance wise and if that turns out to be true it will be a good thing.

Although this is an eye candy result, this is not the result of the artists but of the programmers since effects requires programming skills way more than art skills specially this one. Your point would be perfectly right for a model or a texture update but fail short in this case. He questioned the AG but i'd go even further, why not use the time to fix some ludicrous and offensives bugs that are still present in DCS after days/months/years or just one of the long list of unfinished features........oh right we know...."fixing bugs does not bring money, poor programmers i understand them" - a random modern fanboy gamer quote

And I'm pretty sure ED has absolutely zero difficulty with making videos, so where is it? Even their new cinematic gameplay video did not show it, despite the Hornet attacking a ground target. Are we supposed to really believe that a Hornet can find, ID, and attack a ground target with the Mark II Eyeball? Heck, why even send a Hornet in that situation? That was prime Warthog territory!! Do the video again but with an A10C and use the gun and I'm sure the video would've been much more awesome...

I also LOL at the video "storyline".... there are a few baddies with trucks harassing a road, let's send a Hornet with a couple of rocket pods! Now the Su-33 trailer, that was bad ass!!


If you have artists sitting around and doing nothing, then you've not planned your project properly and are therefore spending money when you could've avoided it.... but we all know how bad ED is at project planning so there's no need for me to lecture on about that. As for your last sentence, well, let's not count our chickens until the eggs hatch. I believe these new effect will make performance worse.... but neither of our beliefs matter until we can actually test the damn thing on different hardware specs and get tangible results. What I find interesting is that the people who **DO** have access to the code and who **DO** post screenshots and videos have nothing to say about performance numbers under specific hardware specs. Care to guess why?

But they aren't sitting around, they are doing something. Making condensation effects. I for one hope this results in better explosion and especially cloud graphics soon. Most game studios shuffle the artists around project to project, but ED isn't as big as Ubisoft and don't have multiple studios for that. I'd also rather retain the guys working on the project and continue improving the graphics while the programmers work on other things. This is how game design is. Entire studios often work as support studios, helping with art, small bits of content, quality assurance, a DLC pack, and other small things.

On the other hand, let us reverse the situation. Assume the flight model, avionics, and other systems are finished right now but the artists are still working. Do you propose firing the guys working on those systems and then re-hire them (or someone else) 1-2 months down the road? Because honestly, that business model is likely worse than what they are doing right now. Especially when it comes to a very niche type of game such as a flight sim. Fire/re-hire these guys every few months and you won't be able to get them to come back. They will move onto another company, probably some free to play crap that is popular in Russia or Asia or maybe something not even video game related. And the harsh reality is, very few people would care to work on a flight simulator. It is probably bottom of the barrel for potential game designers.

You're missing the point. You hire people to do the job, then when the job is finished, you send them on their way. You don't keep them on payroll and find other stuff for them to do. Where exactly they fall into the development process is irrelevant, but if you hire them too early or keep them on for too long, then you're not planning your project properly.

Say you were to design a building... do you employ bricklayers and plumbers while the engineers and architects have yet to draw up the plans? Once the plans are drawn up and construction has started, do you keep paying the architects and engineers? Do you then design a new building just to justify keeping them employed? Do you ask them to design add-ons to the planned building just to justify keeping them employed? What happens when the building is finished? What "work" will you give to the architects, engineers, bricklayers, plumbers, electricians, etc. then? Fact is that you will have to fire people.... not because of any fault, but simply because their services are no longer needed.

2 years down the line, a fault develops in your building and you need an electrician. Ideally, you'd get the guys who did the initial work as they'd probably remember what went where but if you can't get those guys.... do you REALLY think it'll be the end of the world? Are there really no other electricians available? Heck, let's even take the best-case scenario.... the guys who did the initial work **ARE** available and they remember exactly what went where. What happens when they've fixed the fault? Do you find other faults for them to "fix"? Do you get them to route electrical cables to useless places just to justify their payroll?

Wow, just wow. I am glad that I only once worked for a company that staffed by your logic. If you staff properly, there is always work for everyone. If you want to run your company with just temporary employees then you never end up with a cohesive team. I have worked in both the engineering and IT fields and the companies that I worked for did quite well without firing almost everyone as soon as the current project was finished.

What's with such a narrow-minded focus? Do you really need to be like that to cling to your viewpoints?

Never seen seasonal work? What happens when fruit-picking season is over? What do you do with 80-90% of your fruit pickers? If you needed 1,000 fruit pickers during harvest season, what do you do with them if you only need 100 people during the rest of the year? Conversely, do you just hire 100 people and make them do 10x the work during harvest season?

Never hired a painter to paint your living room? What happens when he's finished painting your living room and the rest of the house doesn't really need a new coat of paint?

Never hired a mechanic to fix a fault in your car? What happens when he's finished fixing that fault? Do you find a new fault for him to fix?

What happens if you want to build your own dream house? Would you not exercise my "wow, just wow" logic? How would you "staff properly" in this case?

Obviously, this does not apply to all jobs.... companies need a certain level of IT guys for maintenance of their computer systems, hospitals need a certain level of nurses and doctors, and restaurants obviously don't fire their chefs after the last order of the day has been placed. Please try not to miss the point again....

You did say that "if you staff properly" and that's exactly what I'm saying. When you have artists doing X, Y, and Z while your programmers are still struggling with A, then you've not staffed properly. When your GPU is sitting there waiting on CPU cycles, then you've not built your computer properly. When they're having issues getting 2.5 out the door and when they're having issues with new patches breaking things, all the while the artists and certain programmers come out with new vapor effects, well, I'd love to hear you make your case about how ED is staffed properly.

This. Especially when your industry is so niche. If someone (happily) enjoys making flight simulator effects you'd want to hire and retain them, because most artists would rather make a fantasy RPG or zombie game. In any event that is really all irrelevant. You're claiming they're doing nothing, which they aren't. Then you're claiming artists shouldn't be working on anything until the F-18 (?) is finished, from a programming perspective. That makes zero sense because these effects benefit all of DCS World. I see no reason why artists should come to a standstill for one module's programming efforts. Having them not working won't make the programming any quicker. And throwing a bunch of temporarily programs at the issue may not be of any use.

Don't get me wrong, ED may be mismanaged somewhat (but you and I really have no idea), but your solutions are moronic. I'm not trying to be rude here at all, but your idea of game design just doesn't make sense for a small studio or a large AAA studio. Especially given the project type, a constantly upgraded (at a really slow, slow pace) piece of software. Hornet or not, I'd appreciate the new effects ASAP. But I am waiting for clouds more than anything. The clouds in DCS look very ugly, so I cannot wait until those are overhauled even if performance drops. I'll be getting a new GPU with or without DCS improvements.

So many things wrong with this post so bear with me.....


You've not read my reply, have you?


Um, no. If someone happily makes something, it is not your obligation to hire them. Sure, you'd want to while you have work for them, but not keep them in payroll just because they happily make effects. That reasoning is just major fail.


No, I didn't claim they were doing nothing. You made that claim, I just ran with it. Read the thread again.


No I didn't. Read again.


And now we start building the strawman....


The fact that projects are delayed by YEARS still gives you no idea? The fact that the Hornet was supposed to be in open beta in late 2016 gives you no idea? The fact that up to today, patches still break stuff gives you no idea? The fact that they release screenshots of terrain but give no information on the hardware specs of the system used gives you no idea? My solutions are moronic, huh?


I'm not trying to be rude too, but replying to strawman arguments and deliberate misunderstanding of my statements is just plain rude and dishonest. While I may be totally wrong and be speaking out of my ass, I'm not the one with projects under years of delay, I'm not the one running a company where speculation of it going under is rampant, I'm not the one with the product where the official forums is constantly being purged and customers being silenced.

So you'd appreciate the new effects, you want clouds, blah blah blah. Great. But that wasn't the point I was making. Clouds and vapor trails and eye candy can and should come after the core engine is done . They show us vapor trails and release a new cinematic video but one of the greatest features that they should be showcasing for this module --- the A-G radar --- is nowhere to be seen. "ED may be mismanaged somewhat" is a hilarious understatement. Please let's not call other community members "moronic" while showing them how it's really done.

This was your first post in this thread:



You're seemingly insisting that they prioritize graphical effects over air to ground radar technology or the flight model. That was your initial post in this thread. I mentioned it would be pointless for the artists to not continue working on graphical effects just because the radar may not be done. Especially since these effects don't necessarily benefit the Hornet only. I may never own the module myself, so I may enjoy these graphical effects far more than the radar implementation on a module I don't own. These things benefit owners of any module. So I'm not sure why you initially got so worked up about graphical effect show cases.

Then I replied to someone else who wanted "core features", I am assuming radar and avionics, done before artwork. Which makes little sense because I am assuming the artists and avionics programmers, flight model programmers are assigned different tasks. It is especially odd since those effects are not strictly for the Hornet. For all we know the Hornet has a team of 5-8 people, DCS World has a team of 3-5, and these artists work on the DCS World part. Meaning their contributions to the graphics have no effect on the Hornet progress. I really doubt the VFX guy is the same guy who does flight models. I'm assuming ED has one guy who specializes in general VFX which yes, can require some programming.

Then we got this gem:



Well they clearly aren't sitting around doing nothing which you also acknowledge. They likely have no effect on the Hornet's avionics progress. So do we agree here? Then why the overly sarcastic first post? Are they not to show artwork until they show an avionics video for a specific module? What about the people who have no interest in the Hornet?

We also know that artwork and programming in game development can never by synchronized perfectly. One may be finished sooner or later, regardless of project management. So is it really a waste if the artists work on improving general graphical effects in the game regardless of where the Hornet may be avionics and programming wise? This comes back to my other question: What do you propose they do? Not work on these effects? Work on them but not post progress of WIP images of it? Lay off all the artists not related to the Hornet and hope to rehire them or similar people? What solution do you have? I'd really like to hear it.