I knew the module prices would go up, which is lame considering how the sales are these days. I suppose I won't own a Harrier, or F-18. I fully expect the F-18 to be $100 or so.

I guess you've not seen the Falcon BMS fanbase. It's not like this at all.


True!


Like I said, any assumptions should be able to stand up to scrutiny.... The F-18 project is well-known and I've got newsletters talking about it in early 2014. Speculation of the Hornet being done next started almost as soon as DCS A10C was released. There's no way none of the 3rd-party guys didn't know about it. As for limited income, that's not the model ED is following at all, with early access sales, release sales, campaign DLCs, and aircraft scattered across various years of aviation. If ED thought a customer would buy only one module, they'd make it the best one they could, but that's not what we're seeing.

I don't doubt the F-18 would be wildly successful, but I don't think it'll bury any module at all. Sales of other modules will slow down and will probably stay that way for a while, but with the DCS environment, it won't be long before the average DCS customer looks for the next thing.

Having said that, do we have any educated guesstimates of release date for the Hornet and the Harrier? I was under the impression that the Harrier was further along, that it would be released well before the Hornet, but I've not been keeping tabs very much on the Hornet.



Simply wait 1-2 years after release and it'll be part ofa 50%-off sale or bundle sale

Well, before ED got their hands on the Harrier for their internal QA testing (LOL), it was scheduled for Q3 2017. E/A was announced and opened a week-ish ago, so maybe end of November. Purely a guess.
However, from a money standpoint, ED has not released back to back modules within a month of each other. This would stunt continued sales of the first module, as some people hold out and wait to see how the launch went before buying. Unless E/A is announced around the 1st of December for the Hornet, it's HIGHLY doubtful a 2017 release will be made. So the forthcoming excuses and crawfishing will be issued.

Well, I'm seeing links to Harrier videos being posted on YT whereas nothing much for the Hornet so the Harrier is indeed further along.... based on the lack of videos of the A-G radar in the Hornet, I would say the Hornet would be late 2018 at the earliest, so if the Harrier comes out early 2017, I don't think it's competing with the Hornet at all.

What Time Zone are you in Ice? It's November of 2017 where I am.

Even then its $50 or so. I don't mind spending the money if I use it, but these will more or less be novelty modules for myself. I'll never learn the systems enough to have fun with them so they'll almost never get touched. And I don't like putting money into something that I won't use. Thinking of CLoD, played 61 minutes according to Steam. I only played Rise of Flight for a few hours since I purchased it, but I put 20 or so hours into the free demo so it was well worth the money.

If it is what they need to stay in business then I understand. But they'll have to get the die hard flight sim audience to purchase it.

I do plan to use the Harrier, as my Virtual Squadron wants to incorporate operations that involve a seaborne strike element.

Virtual VMA-214

Didn't take long for you to abandon all pretense of wanting a "reasonable, balanced discourse," huh?


So you'll spend $50 for a modern fighter jet but not learn it's systems? Why buy this at all then? The F/A-18E SuperBug is $50 for FSX or $60 for P3D, it's the E-model, and you can fly anywhere on Earth. Surely that's better value for money than buying the DCS Hornet where you can only fly in Nevada/Normandy/Black Sea/Hormuz.


Not when they cut out much of what makes the Hornet so cool. At Early Access release, it'll be like a Warthog-lite for A-G and an Eagle-lite for A-A, so why would a Warthog player or an Eagle player looking for an upgrade buy a Hornet?

Which is why I said its only worth it if I use it. I've spend a decent bit of money on games I never played and I'd rather not repeat that. I'd buy a DCS module at $25-30 at the most, because I likely won't use it. The F-18 is actually appealing but considering it will be a pain to setup, it falls back into the same situation. Waste of money if I don't use it.

As for FSX, it seems like a great game for civil aviation. But with no combat, compatibility issues that seem like a nightmare, and payware everywhere that makes ED look cheap I'll likely never pick it up. Which is why I purchased a bunch of 1:400 models as of late instead. At least I get to see them.

don't buy FSX - buy P3D v4 which is a 64bit up to date flight sim made by Lockheed Martin - as for combat, I hardly miss it and I have been flying FSX-P3D almost exclusively for these past 10 years.

and there is combat - courtesy of Tacpack,

https://www.vrsimulations.com/tacpack.php

most new aircraft already are tacpack compatible and thanks to v4, it is a matter of time before air to air and air to ground becomes part of the P3D experience.

I was just teasing you with the Time-Zone thing. I guess I should have put an emoji

As far as the switch from the Warthog/Eagle to the Hornet, One Word: Carrier Operations in a non-FC3 Attack Fighter.

Tom, I've been looking pretty hard at X-Plane 11. Having come from FSX, what would you say (IYHO) puts P3D ahead of X-Plane for Civil Aviation?

I like P3D more

I've had it since v1.4 , then I bought v2, v3 and now v4

and it keeps getting better and better and it is stable (64bits makes a difference) and there is an update roughly once every 4 months.

I have REX 4 - Texture Direct with Soft Clouds for textures , OPUS FSX for weather - including P3D I needed $120 to get this:


I find eye candy awesome

add two or three flyables and download some photoreal terrain for free (blueskyscenery.com)

the fun is to manage your plane and go sight seeing

(that is a Milviz Corsair, that I am going to start making skins for)

I don't quite get your reasoning here.... you'll spend $25-30 max for a module you likely won't use.... so why buy at all? Keep that $25-30 and use it on something you WILL use.


As Tom said, there's Tacpack... if you're not digging into the Hornet systems anyway, then Tacpack should be more than enough. Plus you can fly anywhere in the world. It can become more expensive, yes, with terrain, weather, and cloud add-ons, but it will work everywhere in the world and you can fly a great variety of aircraft compared to what ED offers.


Still nothing that resembles a "reasonable, balanced discourse."


That's more than one word.
Also, so what? What exactly do you think Hornet carrier ops would bring that is not available in current FC3 carrier ops (Su-33)?

That's more than one word.
Also, so what? What exactly do you think Hornet carrier ops would bring that is not available in current FC3 carrier ops (Su-33)?

[/quote]

Well, it'll bring Carrier Operations in a "Study Sim". I'm excited about it, I'm excited about Harrier Ops from the Tarawa.

I also don't fly FC3 aircraft because I can't stand trying to fly an aircraft in combat whilst performing hand contortions because of all of the keyboard combinations.

In other words, all you're really after is a clickable pit?
One word --- Helios.

At the same time, using a clickable cockpit is very slow and un-ergonomic. It works okay for something like a 787 where you are doing very few maneuvers and looking down and releasing control of the stick is okay. But get into combat and using the clickable cockpit is a nightmare. Keyboard combos are quicker than panning around, zooming in by the right amount, and then moving your mouse to click on it, then repeating the progress again if the step requires two button presses, and then readjusting the zoom and view angle. Most keyboard combos you can release, hit them and be back into action in a second.

As for the Su-33, it lacks AGMs or any guided air to ground weapons. That is a big plus for the Hornet.

When you're in combat and you need to take your hands off the HOTAS to flick a switch or press a button, you've already done something wrong. But yeah, moving the view around to click on a section of the screen is a pain to do despite sounding cool. Pair that with a TrackIR setup and it's even worse to execute.


Which won't be the case for the Hornet for a good while yet, it seems.

Not to continue to drive the discussion off topic (or maybe that's a good thing in this case... )...

This is something where I think FC3 missed the mark for me. I also agree that in a combat sim, intuitive keyboard commands are actually more useful than a clickable cockpit. However, in FC3, the selection of keys are 1) completely un-intuitive to me, and 2) vary from aircraft to aircraft. For these two reasons, I have to spend too much time trying to re-learn the key combos before (and during a flight). And for that reason I never got into any of the Russian birds and only got comfortable with the A-10, and slightly comfortable with the F-15. As clumsy as a clickable cockpit can be in combat, I do better in BMS simply because I can look at the MFD and change the drop settings for a Mk82 more quickly than I can remember what key press does it in the FC3 A-10A.

I know Strike Fighters 2 was an order of magnitude simpler, but it was nice that the controls were the same in all aircraft. It made it easy to jump around from aircraft to aircraft and really enjoy the "survey sim" aspect of the game. I want to do the same with FC3 but I get too confused.

Again, I recommend Helios plus a touchscreen. Imagine a clickable cockpit that you can manipulate with your actual fingers.... no need to reach for the mouse, no need to remember which keyboard keys does what. You know where the switch/button/knob is, you activate that, done, just like a clickable pit. The advantage of a touchscreen is that you can be moving your head around (keeping SA for example, or if you're padlocked) but your switch/button/knob is not a "moving target" that you have to hit with your mouse cursor.

Now with Helios and a touchscreen, you can therefore have a "clickable cockpit" even with FC3 aircraft....

Sounds cool. But (at least for me personally), I already question the amount of time and money I have invested in flight sims and HOTAS, TrackIR, etc... when I struggle to find time to actually play and enjoy. Buying more expensive hardware and softwware to try to make games fun is getting less and less attractive compared to simply doing things that are fun to begin with.