Erik "EinsteinEP" Pierce reviews the current build of DCS World.

http://SimHQ.com/_air15/air_544a.html

I am a bit happy, and a bit disappointed in this review. I won't go into the disappointment other then to say it would have been more fair if they had based the review on 1.2.4 and other reasons that I won't elaborate for they will just cause a flame war. DCS deserved better treatment IMHO.

Really nice comprehensive review Erik and you are right on the money with the comments on the mission builder...you need to be prepared for trial and error and a LOT of forum searching, and help from great people at SimHQ of course. It took me forever to just get the AI wingmen to engage instead of following me around like sheep. Other sims mission builders are much more intuitive or give the AI much more initiative. You'd think setting a CAS waypoint, flying to a target and issuing an order to your wingies to 'attack ground targets' should be enough, but I've learned (unless there is an easier way) there is an entire submenu of 'rules of engagement' orders you need to set too just to get the AI to enagage. Yes, this gives you much more control (you can tightly define the area in which they may attack in order to prevent them straying) but jeez, it's a lot of work.

So, a full mission builder with a very steep learning curve.

But agree the fast mission builder is fantastic.

Nice article Einstein. Thanks.

I have to agree that the training is pretty sub par - I've been gaming for 20 years but have never flown or anything and its really tough to get into. Its just as well that its so much fun otherwise i'd be giving up very quickly.

Luckily the A-10c is easy to fly, but flight basics aren't explained enough even in the manual, they go into technical detail in some things, but no purpose in others

I'm not sure SimHQ has access to a beta version of the sim. But you also must realize that the beta version might be at times more buggy than a release because it is in active development. That said I am not sure there will ever be a "good" time to review DCS World as there is bound to be a new module or feature included into a public release that is considered to be "beta." For example with 1.2.2 FC3 and CA are still beta, and even features like the AFM-M (afm missiles) is probably a beta as its just been introduced with FC3.



Quoted from the article.


Its LUA, not Luna. And its probably the biggest new mission editor feature that has been added recently.


The mission editor will use whatever units of measure you have set in your options. However triggers and maybe a few other things are always in metric as the metric system is what the entire simulation runs in.

I think the review was fair and honest and represents FC3 as it sits today on the hard drives of those who aren't beta testers.

Unfortunately, at press time, 1.2.2 was the currently released product. I am looking forward to the updates that have been proposed for 1.2.3 and beyond, but until then I'm only able to review products that are actually available.



For clarification to all, I did not have access to closed-beta versions of DCS World or any of the modules.



lol How'd that slip through our editing process? Thanks for the find! Also, it's technically Lua, not capitalized - the programming language was developed in Brazil and Lua is Portuguese for "Moon". More here: http://www.lua.org/about.html

+1 (facepalm)

It has been corrected.

If you knew FC3 was the multiplay problem and it is in BETA, why did you do a review of a BETA peice of software? I fly DCS A-10 for a couple hours at a time in multiplay so it can't 1.2.2 DCS A-10 you were talking about. And your blanket statement that you made about Multiplay not being important to ED was blatantly false as witnessed by statements from ED that what is now 1.2.4 is delayed so they can work out the bugs in multiplay. A Beta Tester said he just spent 6 hours flying DCS in multiplay to work out the bugs. Sounds lilke to me you put your foot in your mouth on that statement. Ande don't give me that line about you were talking about 1.2.2 multiplay or else you would have made that more clear then just the blanket, baseless statement you made.

Dusty, comparing DCS: A10 multiplay (I assume you're using it as a standalone) to DCS: World ain't the same thing. There's something wrong with World, which also affects any modules installed in world. So if you're flying A10 all by your lonesome you're gonna be hard pressed to find an A10 only server. Just about everyone is running world online, as is my Squadron. Your response seems to insinuate that Einstein was being less than honest with his review, which I have to disagree with. You're dead wrong in that respect and the official statement was 1.2.3 is delayed because of Russian holidays. 1.2.3 is also supposed to have the m/p fix. I think you owe Einstein an apology.

I am flying A-10C as a part of DCS World, thank you very much. And no I don't owe him an apology. ED has been quite clear that MP was a major reason for the delay in 1.2.3 which is now 1.2.4. Saying it isn't a priority is dead wrong.

I think it was a good review, how can you review something you don't have? Once another version comes it....another review can be done, but until then....this is what the users have. World is in beta, FC3 is in beta, CA is in beta....what else is in beta and for how long?

I'm not trying to slag ED, cuz 'ol Ruggles is turning over a new leaf but m/p has been fuxored for quite some time. There have been many other things patched during the time m/p has been broken. Now, from someone on the outside looking in it sure as heck looks like m/p isn't as much a priority as some of the other things that have been fixed. As for 1.2.3, the announcement that Wags made said mid January release for 1.2.3, not 1.2.4. Einstein's article, his opinion, his call. Just like you're entitled to your opinion. Even if it's wrong.

*Sigh* No it is not.

Wags used the dev repository for his video. You don't want a build based on the dev repository, believe me.

Fair review of the product that is available to consumers RIGHT NOW.

Agreed Sobek, and thank you for correcting me.

If MP is not a priority, then why did Matt say on Dec 29th at the ED forums:

"1.2.3 Update

During the course of version 1.2.3 testing, we found a significant technical problem with multiplayer. With the Russian Christmas holiday upon us, we unfortunately will not be able to release version 1.2.3 until the middle of January 2013. Given the feedback we have received on the current state of network play stability, we feel it important to resolve this before the release of 1.2.3."

Note: I haven't read the review yet, but I'm sure EinsteinEP did a fair job of it.

I was part of the testing mentioned earlier; we try hard to find bugs for the team to squash in terms of MP stability and other things (ie. things not displaying the same for everyone, etc).

It isn't always possible though because some issues are intermittent. Sometimes only the public at large can catch certain bugs; despite this, we've logged /hundreds/ of bugs that you never got to see simply because we caught them before you, the public, got your hands on a release.

I'd also like to add just a bit of (vague) commentary on the MP stuff. There is a lot of work and some overhauling to be done with respect to certain MP elements. It is not trivial or easy work, and it has to be carefully done. They're working on it, but it requires time.

Likewise, features are being suggested/thought of/added/developed at the same time which can also add bugs. The pace of work is probably faster than most of you would like to believe.

Thanks for the input GG. I know ED and the testers are trying to nail down the issues. If we look into the past there were many Red Flag exercises with people flying from all over the world that had minimal connection issues. And that's with 65-75 people in one server! I know, I flew just about all of them.

We're waiting (im)patiently GG.

That is right, back then things worked better from that perspective. However, with the addition of new capabilities to the ME, additional AI/vehicle capabilities and the arrival of Combined Arms, that same network code is no longer capable of handling the load it is put under.

At this point, I hope that it will be possible to achieve that same load - given the extra amount of 'stuff' that goes into missions now, it's not an easy thing. All I can say is the devs are working on it